Pack Mentality
by Guerrie
Summary: When young Harry Potter, aged seven and a half, is bitten by a werewolf the results are ... unexpected, to say the least.
1. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

_"Wolves are not our brothers; they are not our subordinates, either. They are another nation, caught up just like us in the complex web of time and life." - Henry Beston._

The incessant thumping, and the shower of plaster that rained down on his head not long after, was the first thing that greeted young Harry Potter as he opened his almost alarmingly green eyes to the cold winter morning. His cupboard was shrouded in darkness, with no windows to let in any light, and so it was impossible to determine what time of day it was, but there were no screams and no shouts, and so he presumed it was still morning. Shifting under his thin blankets, Harry Potter reached one thin, goose-bump covered arm up to the ceiling and fumbled around for a second or two before he managed to grab a hold of the pull for the light. He yanked downwards, and his cupboard was bathed in a weak glow, one that didn't even come close to piercing the shadows in the corners of the small cupboard under the stairs. The light swung backwards and forwards, and he squinted at something hanging from the wall, pulling a small pen, the kind commonly found in banks, out from beneath his pillow and reaching up to cross out another day on his small, cheap calendar as he pushed his glasses further up his nose.

3rdJanuary 1988. The fuzzy image of a zebra foal eyed him with a mix of curiosity and trepidation, it's expression frozen on the January page of the 'Safari Africa' calendar that Dudley had received on Christmas Morning and promptly chucked at Harry's head. When Harry had instinctively ducked under the onslaught of glossy pages, he had been subjected to a vicious backhand courtesy of his Uncle Vernon for daring to avoid 'valid punishment of his inherently freakish nature' and locked in his cupboard for the rest of Christmas, and the best part of Boxing Day.

Rubbing his lower jaw absently as he remembered the sharp sting of pain, Harry carefully extracted his legs from the thin covers and crawled out of the small nest of blankets which he claimed as a bed. He found the cord of the light once again, and turned it off before pushing the door of his cupboard open and scrambling out into the hallway. As he stood he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the large mirror suspended from the wall opposite.

Harry Potter, aged seven and a half, was almost impossibly small for his age, standing at approximately 3'4", and was almost dangerously thin, even for his small frame. He wore a huge, baggy T-shirt which had a gaping hole in it's hem, and ripped pockets. It's neckline hung off of his left shoulder to reveal a yellowing bruise that all but covered his shoulder, and which disappeared down past his collar bone. Harry rolled his shoulder forward tentatively and winced: it hurt. Harry also wore large black pants which would have slipped from his narrow hips had they not been held tightly in place by a worn brown leather belt. On his feet were a pair of Dudley's old trainers. They were too big and were falling apart at the seams. Harry scuffed them against the thick carpet beneath his foot, and watched with interest as a hole in the sole gaped and then shrank back in on itself. He glanced back up at the mirror and, frowning deeply, and unsure of his own motives, tried to look past all of the clothing and the bruises and the malnutrition.

Harry Potter, aged seven and a half, had a largest, brightest green eyes that he had ever seen on any creature that wasn't feline. They were almond shaped and seemed almost luminescent, framed by thick, dark eyelashes. His skin was pale as opposed to it's usual light tan earned from hours of working in the Dursley's garden. Harry guessed that it had something to do with it being winter - the Dursleys never asked him to do anything for them in the garden when the winter months rolled 'round, no doubt fearing the looks and stares and whispers that would no doubt result. Instead Harry was locked away in his cupboard, called out only to prepare meals for his relatives. His hair was a jet black mess of tangles and tufts piled on the top of his head and sticking out every which way.

Harry frowned, picking out his Aunt Petunia's cooing voice from the kitchen, and Dudley's answering demand - it had been Dudley's charge down the stairs that had woken him up, he remembered. Making his mind up, Harry brought his hand down from where it had been patting futilely at his hair, trying to get the particularly stubborn bit at the back to lie flat, and licked at his palm until a decent amount of saliva had been transferred to his skin. Happy with that, he reached up and began smoothing his hair down again, hoping that the moisture would weigh the errant clumps down. For a moment it did, and Harry spared a moment to smile happily at his reflection before he quickly made his way into the kitchen, not noticing how the back of his hair immediately pinged upwards, back into it's original position.

The kitchen at Number Four Privet Drive was very much like every other room in the house: spotless, with everything in it's place. Harry knew that Aunt Petunia's worst nightmare was to find herself hosting guests when the house was a wreck, and so spent a good few hours long after the Dursleys had retired for the evening, slipping silently from room to room and making sure that everything was exactly how it should be.

Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley were all clustered around the dining room table. Uncle Vernon was reading the daily newspaper, halfway through an article which was, if his mutterings and sharp commentary to his wife and son were anything to go by, a particularly insulting and horrendous piece of work about the increasing price of petrol. Aunt Petunia was nodding to her husband distractedly, murmuring 'yes, dear' every so often as she tried to convince Dudley to stop carving away at the dining room table with the Swiss Army knife he'd gotten from Aunt Marge at Christmas. 'Never too early for the little critter to learn how to defend himself' had been Marge's booming response when questioned by a less than pleased Uncle Vernon, and so the gift had stayed.

Smiling hopefully as he entered the kitchen, and trying to catch his Aunt's eye as he crossed over to the stove, Harry received nothing more than a disgusted glance from his Uncle Vernon, who didn't even pause in his mutterings, and the interest of his cousin, whose gaze followed him from one end of the room to the other. Aunt Petunia didn't even look up from her task of retrieving the knife from Dudley without incurring a temper tantrum and Harry sighed, deflating as he reached into one of the cupboards for a frying pan. He bit his lip as he made a detour to the fridge after setting the pan on the stove and lighting the gas flame underneath it.

Once the pan was hot enough, Harry poured a small amount of cooking oil into it, and swilled it around until it covered the base of the frying pan before carefully laying six strips of bacon out onto the hot, spitting surface. Harry was oblivious, his gaze fixed onto the rapidly shrivelling strips of bacon, focusing with all of his will power on keeping his lower lip from trembling and his eyes from watering. It just wasn't fair.

It wasn't long before the warm, heavy smell of cooking bacon was wafting through the air, and a growl came from behind him. Harry started and turned.

Behind him was Killer, one of Dudley's latest acquisitions. Killer was a mutt, and the man who the Dursleys had taken Killer to get checked out by had suggested that he was a half-Rottweiler, half-Alsatian mix. The dog was large, almost as tall as Harry, and heavy set, though much of the dog's bulky appearance was an illusion, created by copious amounts of fur and fluff. Dudley had found him wandering the streets a few weeks before Christmas, and had managed to bully his parents into letting him keep him.

Life for Harry had gotten increasingly worse ever since Killer's induction into the household, but Harry didn't resent the dog for this, and told the creature so on a regular basis for fear that the animal might start to hate him, too.

Right now Killer was wagging his tail at Harry so vigorously that Harry feared it might fall off, and was staring balefully up at the small boy, drool falling in globules from the dog's mouth. The raven-haired boy glanced reluctantly back at the frying pan, correctly guessing what it was that Killer wanted, and then up at the Dursleys. They seemed suitably distracted - Uncle Vernon had moved onto an article about Margaret Thatcher, and Dudley was glaring at his mother who had finally managed to get her hands on the knife Dudley had been brandishing earlier.

Quickly, Harry snatched a piece of bacon from the frying pan and dropped it onto the counter to let it cool, unaware of Uncle Vernon's gaze abandoning his paper and following his movements.

"BOY!" Harry jumped, hand catching on the handle of the frying pan as it shot down to his side, and knocking the pan from the stove and onto the tiles below. With a loud crack, one of the tiles split down the middle, and Killer darted forwards to grab the strips of bacon in his mouth before beating a hasty retreat.

Harry turned scared, pleading eyes to his Uncle who had shot from his chair and was advancing on him. "No, please! I didn't mean to - I ... please! Uncle Vernon, I - "

A hand clamped down on the flesh of his upper arm, and Harry yelped, distantly aware of Dudley's snickering and Aunt Petunia's deathly silence, almost louder than his own blood pounding in his ears. Knuckles drove into his jaw, and he would have met the ground had Vernon not been holding him tightly upright by his elbow. "You are no nephew of mine!" Vernon roared into his ear drum, dragging Harry behind him as he stormed from the kitchen and into the hall. With one solid push, Uncle Vernon shoved Harry into his cupboard, and slammed the door shut, muffling the boy's weak whimpers and pleas.

In the darkness of the cupboard under the stairs, Harry's eyes adjusted in the dim light to see the world in a series of greys and darker greys. And, as the muted image of a gangly zebra colt watched on, a single tear rolled down his cheek. "Please ..."

The solid metallic clanking of a bolt being slid firmly into place was the only answer.

Harry was let out of his cupboard only once that night: to walk Killer around the block. The task fell to Harry most nights, as it usually coincided with either Eastenders or Match of the Day, and his aunt and uncle wouldn't dream of even considering sending Dudley out alone in the waning light. But despite the darkness and his wildly overactive imagination, Harry was perfectly safe most nights: the neighbourhood in which the Dursley's lived was a perfect picture of suburbia, free from all of the crime and vandalism of the inner city, and Killer was easily large enough to deter any of the 'hoodlums' that Aunt Petunia insisted were out there, just lurking in the shadows.

As he walked, the night air was cool against his skin, sharp as it shot down his windpipe and into his lungs, like an icy yet somehow comforting blade. It ruffled through his hair like a mother's caress, and his every foot fall sounded too loud as he walked down the sleeping street. A lot of people hated being out and about at night time, or so his Aunt Petunia claimed, but young Harry Potter liked it. There was an eerie, end of the world sense to the air, like he and Killer were the last people ... dogs ... creatures alive and awake. Just him, the heavy amber glow of the street light, and the steady clicking of Killer's nails on the pavement beside him.

A large, almost ethereal moon hung high in the sky, cold and bleak against a backdrop of darkening blue, freckled by twinkling stars. It was a full moon, and Harry shivered, a spark of foreboding crawling down his spine. From his side, Killer growled.

The young boy's breathing became laboured as he froze, not so much as twitching as he fought a losing battle against hyperventilation and followed Killer's line of sight to a small patch of trees and shrubs located just within the boundaries of the nearby park, no more than fifteen feet away. Harry's eyes felt like they were popping out of his skull, but the rest of his face was frozen in burgeoning panic. He swallowed, pulling up seven year old logic and tentatively calling out, "... H-hello?"

It was little more than a strangled whisper, but it was enough.

Something ... canine burst from the trees, vaulted the small fence between them, and lunged at Harry with a hungry snarl. It was nothing more than a light brown blur, speckled with grey, and Harry had no time to do anything but whimper and slam his eyes shut, waiting for the beast to gobble him all up. Then it was on him, a seemingly impossible weight barrelling into him and sending him crashing to the ground. His elbow hit the pavement with a sickening crack, and a white hot heat shot outwards from the bone. Harry yelled out, squirming, and then something was piercing the crook between his neck and his shoulder. He cried louder, and help came.

The weight pinning him to the ground was suddenly gone, and he instinctively scrambled back, away from the danger, sniffling and holding his hand tight to the crook of his neck. It came away bloodied. His glasses had fallen from his nose some time during the assault, but he saw a faint blur of darker black on the ground and he reached for them, sliding them back onto his nose and gasping at what he saw. The right lens of his glasses had cracked upon impact with the ground, but he could still make sense of what he was seeing.

Killer was between him and the unidentified canine, and with the sudden contrast Harry knew that the new dog was much bulkier and taller than the substantial mutt. The two canines clashed them, claws and teeth flashing, snarls and warning growls and yowls of pain tearing from their throats. Harry watched the fight for a minute or so longer before his vocal chords loosened and a frightened squeak slipped past his clamped lips. Killer's attention flickered to Harry for but a moment, shooting the boy a silent message: 'Go!' But the moment's distraction was enough. The new dog leapt in, past Killer's defences, and lunged towards the crossbreed's jugular.

Harry scrambled to his feet, and hung there for a moment, torn between helping Killer and leaving the dog to fight alone. Killer's surprised, and then quickly agonised howl made up his mind, and he swung on his heel, running in a random direction as fast as his short legs could carry him. He couldn't go back to the Dursleys. Not without Killer ... Killer ... the young boy ducked his head as he stopped for breath at the edge of a wood that he didn't recognise, his collar bone aching and weak and numb.

Remembering the pain from earlier, Harry reached up to inspect his collar bone, and felt a large lump just beneath the surface of his skin, about the size of a robin's egg. Confused, and scared that he was going to die, Harry's panic only further intensified the stars swimming behind his vision from pain and exertion and blood loss. He swayed on his feet and, with a startled, weak gasp, fell to the ground. Unconscious.


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

_"We listened for a voice crying in the wilderness. And we heard the jubilation of wolves!" - Durwood L. Allen._

The days following his arrival in the strange forest passed in a hazy blur of sights and sounds and pungent scents and the sharp bitter tang of acid creeping up the back of his throat. His stomach felt like it was folding in on itself in a constant rotation and he had thrown up, little more than bile and saliva, more times than he cared to count until he was dry heaving, the retching motion only increasing the insistent pounding in his head. It felt like someone was taking a piece of two by four to his skull, and he whined as he curled up on himself, muscles and joints protesting painfully as they twisted and knotted. His skin felt like it was trying to crawl off of his bones.

Somehow, though Harry didn't understand or remember how, he found himself lying by a small stream of water at the bottom of a shallow crevasse. Instinctively he tried to fight past the violent shaking every hour or so to venture a sip of the water, but it rarely stayed down. His skin temperature was fluctuating between convulsive shivers and a burning heat, and as he slowly turned red from overheating, Harry pushed himself into the stream, fully-clothed, his mind not pausing to think of the consequences, and not caring, even when the shivers set in and he couldn't find the energy to pull himself from the stream into the chilled night air.

As he lay there, whimpering and crying out inarticulate syllables, with the ghost of comforting emerald eyes floating behind his eyelids, Harry started to see things. Dark shadowy creatures with horns and boiling hot skin joined him in the water, steam rising around them. They cackled and hissed and Harry screamed ... or would have, had his throat not felt like it had been scratched raw by a sand-paper wielding Mr. Universe.

Then, and without warning, his surroundings changed. The stream morphed into lava - enough of an incentive to get his muscles cooperating - and Harry gasped as he looked up and found nothing but fire and brimstone, and a horned man seated on a throne made of human skulls and thigh bones before him. Blazing red coals met Harry's own eyes, and then the chanting started up around him, the man's forked tail swishing two and fro in curiosity.

"Audite lupus ululatus. Animadverto luna dico. Sentio sarcina astrum. Vires. Volo. Voluntas. Vox. Donum. Fatum. Vomica ... mutatus. Testis lupus parvulus ortus. Quisnam est fatum perimo Atrum Unus. Vir. Proeliator. Spes. Vomica Unus. Venator Unus ... Donum Unus. My child."

The voice that echoed around his head as it repeatedly called out the chant was smooth, comforting, and familiar as the images of hell faded from young Harry Potter's mind and he found himself still sitting in the stream, propped up by it's crumbling bank. Harry blinked, and then hesitatingly called out, "M-mom?"

Silence.

Tears rolled unchecked down his cheeks as he scrambled frantically out of the water and quickly scanned his surroundings. He found nothing and let a panicked cry tear from his throat. "Mom? Mom! P-please! Don't leave me! Mom! Don't leave me ... please ..." His voice was husky and raw and he fell back down to his knees as his vision turned on it's axis and exploded into starry pixels. He sobbed into the earth as no answer came. "Mommy ... don't leave me."

His limbs finally gave up supporting his weight and he toppled over onto his back, curling his arms and legs into a tight ball as his racking sobs slowly but surely deteriorated into miserable and pained shudders, and his vision once again faded to black.

When he came to, a ball of quivering muscles and shivering skin, night had fallen in the forest. As he stretched out, muscles protesting and a whimpered groan slipping from his lips, a thin sheen of pale moonlight, filtered through the canopy above, played across skin that was equally as pale. Sitting up, Harry was surprised when the world didn't spin and his brow furrowed. His mind was almost painfully clear after the days of fuzziness, and there was no sharp stabs shooting through his consciousness. His vision, on the other hand, was anything but clear and his brow furrowed further as he took note of the finger-like line crossing from one side of his vision to the other, but not trespassing on the boundaries of his peripheral vision.

Curious, as he could feel the familiar comforting weight of his round, old-fashioned glasses on the bridge of his nose, Harry tentatively reached up towards his face, over-reaching. His fingers bumped into worryingly cool skin instead of metal wire, and Harry's fingers scuttled along the side of his face for a few seconds before coming into contact with the wire frame. He pulled his glasses off and blinked as the world swam into focus.

Confused, Harry quickly put his glasses back onto his face and watched as everything blurred. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. Harry screwed up his face in bewilderment as he gently trailed one finger along the hair-line crack in the right lens before looking hesitantly around at his surroundings.

He could see the world around him in varying shades of black and white, as was standard for your average human's night vision. But he could see everything in so much more detail, from the rush of the stream only a few feet away from him, to the texture and lines of a single petal on a single unidentifiable flower that was growing in the dirt fifty feet further down the bottom of the crevasse. He blinked again, forcing his eyes down to the dirt by his feet, not wanting to focus on his ... abnormalities any longer. He knew it was stupid, but he was scared. Terrified. Uncertain. He could feel a pang of panic being born deep underneath his skin and it was getting harder to breathe as tears pricked his eyes: his heart seemed to have taken up permanent lodgings in his throat.

But even staring at the ground it was impossible to ignore his newly heightened senses.

A owl swooped over head, silent as the night to the human ear, but as clear as if the sound was a voice spoken directly into his ear to the young boy who flinched away and snapped his hands over his ear lobes. However, as he gingerly relaxed, the flapping of the owl's wings fading into nothing, it became apparent that his hearing wasn't limited to the air - he could hear scores of animals bustling about through the undergrowth. He could hear the rustling of the leaves above his head and all around him. The panic swelled and blossomed larger and deeper.

As he breathed deeper - some instinct hidden deep within the recesses of his mind aware that hyperventilating would do little to help and yet ineffective as it clamoured against the rest of his mind - Harry breathed in clean scent with the faintest traces of something metallic underlying. His eyes shot open as he tried to understand the signals his brain was sending him, and he glanced, with a trembling lower lip, in the direction that his brain was prodding him in. His eyes, shining with unshed tears, landed on the stream. He could smell the _water_.

The panic festering in his gut exploded and suddenly everything changed.

It hurt, that much Harry was aware of, but in so many other ways it felt like a relief. A release. His muscles were still sore and protesting, but he felt comfortable in the forest now. Safe. At home. The smells and sounds and sights suddenly made sense and he relaxed, content to give way to the feelings of warmth shooting through him and then he tensed, suddenly suspicious of his new perspective.

Wobbling precariously like a newborn foal, Harry stood and made his way on four legs to the edge of the stream, completely oblivious to the paws and muzzle and fur that he suddenly possessed. Once there, Harry peered into the reflective surface of the water, and familiar emerald green eyes blinked back at him in shock.

Only the green eyes bobbing in the rush of the stream belonged to a small 29lbswolf instead of a small seven year old boy. The wolf's fur was the exact same shade as Harry's unruly locks, and stuck up here and there and all over the place in the same runaway fashion. Peeking through the thick tufts of black that rested between the wolf's perked ears was a streak of crimson fur, shaped like a lightning bolt. Harry blinked, and the wolf copied him in perfect unison. His eyes widened, and suddenly the expression on the pup's muzzled face copied his own feared and bemused expression. Inch by inch. Detail by detail. The wolf was _him_ ...

With this realisation, Harry let out a small sound that was half an alarmed bark and half a panicked yelp. He hastily scuttled backwards, paws scrambling as he darted away from the water's edge. In his haste, Harry didn't notice his tail - unfamiliar as it was - set low to the ground, and with a bit of incredibly unlucky scrambling, Harry stomped on the longer fur on his tail and tripped, tumbling head over heels, backwards and away from the steam. He landed back on the compact dirt with a light thud and a surprised whimper. His lower muzzle hit the ground, promptly cutting him off.

With the human part of his brain stunned and knocked for two for the time being, the wolf side of his brain, suppressed by human logic and thought processes up until now, took the opportunity and surged upwards, beating back the reluctant human consciousness with one swipe of it's metaphysical paws.

Almost instantly, a feeling of comforted playfulness washed over Harry, and the almost painfully thin wolf cub bounded to it's feet, muscles all but humming with a contained energy that Harry hadn't even been aware he had. The sights! The sounds! The _smells_! Harry darted around the small crevasse, all but prancing and darting here and there, small paws skittering on the hard ground as he sniffed at the air and the plants and the water, and then howled a squeaky challenge up at the moon.

Needless to say, the silvery sickle didn't howl back. Harry snorted out through his nostrils, sounding as though he had been expecting the moon to rise to the challenge and disappointed that it hadn't.

With what could almost be described as a nonchalant, dismissive shrug of his shoulders, the wolf darted over to the side of the crevasse, and launched itself onto a small ledge a few feet up. Harry miscalculated the jump, and would have slipped back to the ground had it not been for the nails in his forepaws digging into the rocky edge of the platform, his hind legs wind milling in the air as he tried to pull himself up. He finally managed it, and rested for a moment on the ledge, breathing in and out deeply before yipping lightly in victorious delight, and then immediately throwing himself forward onto the next ledge just a little higher up, this time with a great deal more success.

It wasn't long before Harry was out of the crevasse. For a moment, he just stood there, cocking his head and pricking his ears as he surveyed his surroundings curiously. There was a thin layer of misty fog covering the ground, and Harry wasn't quite tall enough to see over it. The air smelt damp, and stunk of something musky and dark and unidentifiable that set the wolf on edge. Harry growled, an involuntary vibration, and his stomach followed suit, with a rumble loud enough to make his warning sound as pathetic as if it had been emitted from an ambitious mouse.

As though scripted, a bush rustled to Harry's right, and his head snapped around to face the direction of the sound with a curious tilt. He sniffed the air, and evergreen eyes lit up as the wolf recognised the scent from some deep, instinctive store. _Rabbit_ ... powered and directed by his stomach, Harry didn't waste any more time, and promptly charged the bush, pouncing and landing just as the rabbit darted from the bush and off down a forest trail that Harry hadn't noticed before. For a split second, Harry merely watched the rabbit go, tracking it's progress down the path, before he shot to his feet like lightning and bolted after his fleeing dinner.

The small wolf pup chased his lunch for a few minutes - completely oblivious to his surroundings as he raced past and through and under and over them, too busy peering through the fog - but wasn't having much luck. Rabbits, the wolf knew, were faster than they looked, and trickier, too. He had never hunted before, and the human part of his mind, hanging on for dear life, had little knowledge or experience to offer up beyond a short mental clip of an extract of a wildlife documentary in which a pack of lionesses unsuccessfully chased down a gazelle and David Attenborough's calm and oddly lilted voice commentated. The wolf pushed that oh-so helpful snapshot of memory to one side and concentrated on catching the slippery (and far too lucky) rabbit.

Just a little closer ... Harry stretched forwards as he closed in on the rabbit, ready to bring his paw slashing down on the back of the rabbit's hind legs and -

_WHUMP!_

- a huge, black ... something, with wiry fur hit the ground in front of Harry's muzzle, sending up a miniature tsunami of air and loose dirt. He scrambled backwards, but lingered when he would have - should have - run, his stomach and it's protests about giving up his quarry pinning him in place. The rabbit, blocked from his view by the moving bulk in front of him, squealed in terror and then pain and then nothing as it fell silent with a wet cracking sound. A cacophony of slurps and crunches followed, and Harry took the opportunity to back slowly away from the new threat, body low to the ground and ears pinned unhappily to the back of his skull.

He was nearly hidden in the tree line when his paw came down on a thin twig, which snapped with a seemingly deafening cracking sound underneath his weight. The slurps and crunches stopped, and for one heart-stopping moment, the entire forest seemed to pause and suck in it's breath.

Then the creature moved. It spun around to face the wolf and Harry, for the first time, got a good look at what this threat actually was. It was a spider, but much too big and much too fierce-looking to ever be a normal house spider. Harry's hackles rose, and he growled low in his throat, the hair on his back standing on end to give the already overly fluffy wolf a few more inches. But, even with the illusion of added height, Harry felt about as effective as a Chihuahua staring down a Rottweiler.

For a moment the small wolf and the large spider just stared at each other, the spider's pincers clicking and Harry sinking even lower to the ground, his weight spread evenly over his paws so he could dart away in any direction at just a moment's notice. He didn't dare to blink, fearful that if he broke the silent staring contest between himself and the creature regarding him as though he was main meal and dessert, then it would take it as an unspoken cue to attack. However, a quick movement off to the side of his line of sight, deep within his peripheral vision caught his attention, and the wolf's head snapped around before he could stop himself. He mentally blanched at the sight, and could have sworn he paled underneath his fur: surrounding him were columns and rows of spiders, some larger and some smaller than the one that had stolen his dinner out from underneath his nose, and all of them staring directly at him with disturbing fascination.

The world stood still, and the wolf part of his brain all too happily gave way to the human consciousness. Harry blinked, and shrank uncertainly back away from the spiders ... and then, in perfect unison, the wave of beasts burst into scurrying motion, and attacked.

**Oh, look. Another cliffie. Heh ... oops? This chapter was originally meant to be longer, but then I kept getting more ideas and if I'd continued writing to the point I wanted to ... well, I don't want this story to end sooner than it needs to, and that was exactly what would end up happening. Besides that, I'm a little insecure with how I'm portraying Harry as a young wolf cub, and want your input on that before I go much further. Plus it's already a busy chapter and ... yeah. Chapters end when chapters want to end, and this chapter wanted to end here. **

**Something I wanted to clear up about this chapter: the wolf side of Harry's brain and the human side of Harry's brain aren't really separate, tangible things. It's more like I've used the term 'wolf consciousness' when his new animal instincts surge to the surface of his mind and supresses human logic and thought processes, which I've referred to as his 'human consciousness'. This chapter seems to suggest that the two are separate because it's so new to Harry, he hasn't had the experience required to control his instincts. Eventually, however, he will, and the two will work together much more smoothly. Secondly, the whole chant and visions of Hell thing will, no doubt, be cleared up in a later chapter, as will most of your questions such as 'Is Killer is Sirius and is the werewolf Moony?' Guess you'll have to wait and see. **

**I don't think the Canon Dursley's actually beat Harry in the books, probably fearing being found out by someone like Dumbledore. However, while the bruises and the way he's been treated don't play a _huge_ part in this story, they will help with one of the things I want to include later, so ... yeah.**

**Huge glomps and muffins to everyone who reviewed. I hope you enjoyed this chapter just as much as I did writing it. Lol.**


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

_"The wolf is kept fed by its feet." - Russian Proverb._

Harry had once heard, from someone and somewhere unimportant, that it was during times like these that your life was meant to flash before your eyes with all of the subtlety of a steam engine. Well, that and something odd about a bright light and tunnels, and so the young boy currently shrinking in what seemed to be slow motion closer to the ground had certain expectations about the moment of his death. He expected violins and harps. He expected inane little flashes of memory such as the time when Uncle Vernon had sent him to his cupboard with no supper because he'd been peering unblinkingly into the glare of a flashlight and searching its illuminated depths for an aforementioned tunnel and shaking it none too gently when he found no trace of anything of the like. He had expected his mother, halo and all, reclining back in his father's arms as an ethereal wind blew through their hair and they welcomed him home.

Somehow he hadn't expected his last earthly thought to be a numb 'oh no ...' and he hadn't been expecting that the last sound he would ever make would be nothing more than a meek squeak stuck low in his throat, either. Hadn't ever considered it, really.

But that was what lingered in Harry's mind and what tried its best to claw its way back down past his voice box as he shrank back away from the charging columns of spiders, eyes the size of saucers and nails digging into the compact dirt.

All around him pinchers clacked and rivers of legs thudded on the quaking ground, and still Harry stood there as they advanced with incredible speed, all but literally petrified as he faced down the racing quilt of spiders swarming across felled logs and shallow ditches in their bid to rend him limb from limb. One of the spiders reared up and roared a strange, gurgling, hungry hiss then, and with a strangled yelp, Harry's muscles, quivering with harnessed adrenaline, finally reacted and he zipped forwards. But the spiders were already upon him.

A sharp pincher hit the ground inches to the right of Harry's abdomen and kept going. The spider yanked its limb free, leaving behind a deep crater in the earth before it readjusted its aim and struck again. With a frantic, panicked yip, Harry darted to the side and under it's legs, weaving in and out of the hairy structures. As Harry skidded out the other side of the acromantula, he was met by eight shiny, unblinking eyes and, unable to calm himself enough to stop and consider the best way out, he growled rather pathetically and launched himself at the beast. His nails tore through the spider's uppermost eyes, gaining a grip as the eyes burst with a sickening popping sound and the spider's wirey fur became slick with fluid. Harry's hindlegs scrambled to find a purchase even as the wounded creature hissed and floundered to the ground, flinging Harry into the air and away from the main cortex of acromantulas.

He landed in a heap just before a felled tree trunk, rotted away with mold and damp. For a moment Harry just lay there, stunned by the impact, but he quickly shook his head to clear it, and then pulled himself up and over the small trunk with what little upperarm strength the malnourished seven year old had. His tail had just barely cleared the log when the spiders were on him again.

An relatively small acromantula launched itself over the log, landed over Harry and slammed it's pinchers down towards him hungrily. The wolf pup tried to turn his yelp into a snarl, but a pincher found its mark and skewered his right flank. He yowled. Dark midnight fur matted with the unmistakable coppery scent of blood, and Harry writhed in pain, an incisor in his lower jaw tearing through the thin sheets of skin and meat in his upper lip as he flung his head back in the dirt, still pinned on his side, and forced an agonised howl up past the straight line of his throat and jaw. The spider moved, it's pincher tearing through Harry's young flesh, and his howl was cut short with a ragged gasp ... but a harsh, reverberating cry continued to trumpet through the forest, audibly more impressive than the pained sound that had ripped past Harry's snout. The noise sent a stab of unexplainable fear through Harry's gut and he snarled a warning, but wholy uneffective, threat at the acromantula. _Get off me. **Now.**_

The pincher was wrenched from Harry's flank, and the acromantula skittered backwards, clicking and slurping a set pattern of organised sounds and constonants. Harry slunk a foot away from the spider upon first opportunity, before his hindquarters gave out beneath him and he hit the dirt, just watching the spiders retreat in a flurry of nervous energy. He blinked, eyes saucer-wide and mouth slightly parted. _What ... ?_ Surely _he_ hadn't been the reason for their hasty retreat ...

He didn't have to wait long for his answer, as the deep, quavering sound from earlier returned, louder than before. Closer.

A ground-shaking thunder echoed around the clearing that the acromantulas were fleeing from, the steady dur-dum dur-dum of falling hooves sending shockwaves through Harry's bones. Scared and favouring his right hindleg, Harry skirted the distance into a small hole rotted out of the trunk of the felled tree beside him, and pressed himself against the molding bark. It stunk of dirt and a heavy, wet scent that made the young wolf cub want to gag and something thick and sticky was matting his already blood-soaked fur to his skin, but the loud sounds of battle and pain and victory outside kept him pinned in place. As well as that Godawful noise that pierced through the forest with every breath.

Not even the dying and wounded shrieks of the giant spiders could drown out that long, grating sound and Harry pressed harder against the inside of the tree, squeaking as thick sap seeped into his open wound. The sounds of battle seemed to continue for forever and a day, thundering in Harry's ears as the scent of spilled blood reached his nose. His stomach rumbled and Harry's ethereal green eyes widened a fraction of an inch in horror at the urgings pounding through his head. God, was he hungry ... and suddenly Harry was all too aware of the fact that one of arachnids that had been all too determined to make him their dinner had stolen his rabbit. Motivated by his stomach, Harry crept uncertainly to the gaping maw of the hole he had claimed as his hiding place and hesitantly poked his nose out.

The battle that erupted around him was all but over: he watched as the last acromantula skittered away into the gloomy underbush and disappeared from view. The only living things left in the clearing, beyond the odd plant now trampled and flattened and dying, were a relatively small group of equine beings, all with the body of a horse - hooves and tail and all - and with the torsos of men, all but rippling with lean muscles and glowing with the heat of conflict. Most of the horse-men carried blood-coated spears or held bows, a pouch filled with arrows slung across their shoulders. But one held a strangely shaped object up to his lips, the horrid sound richoting around him as he blew into the battle horn a gleeful victory cry. **1**

Eventually the cry tapered off, and Harry snorted a sigh of relief out through his nose. The clipped conversation that had been bouncing back and forth between horse-men was cut short, and heads swivelled in his direction, though only one locked directly onto Harry: the horse-man holding the battle horn. Startled, Harry scrambled backwards, but his injured leg gave out beneath him and he ended up sprawled in the mouth of his hiding place.

To his surprise, his pain-induced clumsiness was met by a dry chuckle rather than swift retribution, and Harry could hear the dull sounds of hooves approaching him, scuffing the dirt as they stopped inches from his nose. The small wave of dusty earth they sent up tickled Harry's nostrils and he sneezed, before blinking up at the large horse-man, trembling in place. The horse-man, black as night in both skin and hair, crouched before him, forelegs buckling until he was kneeling and then hindlegs folding carefully beneath him until his horse-like body was lying before the tiny wolf.

"Worry not, little wolf cub." The voice was bland and detached, almost dreamy, but Harry calmed slightly, resisting the urge to shrink back when the horse-man reached out to scoop his small body into his arms. He was torn. On the one hand, human consciousness screamed at Harry to scratch and bite and claw his way past the large being but his wolven instincts kept him calm and in place, something deep and innate within him assuring himself that he could trust this strange man. He curled into a tighter ball, but let the horse-man hold him as he pulled his hooves beneath him and stood again, turning to face his battle companions.

"Leave the mutt be, Ajax." One of them said, and a blonde palamino stepped forward, his hair and face stained with spider blood. He brandished a spear-tipped staff in Harry's direction and glared down at the werewolf in disdain before looking back up at the dark horse-man. Ajax. "He is near his own kind. Help will be swift coming. We owe this abomination no favour."

Ajax simply shifted Harry's small bulk into a more comfortable position, smiling reassuringly down at Harry before shooting a dark look at the palamino, his gaze matched by the other horse-men that surrounded the commotion. Most seemed to agree with Ajax. "They know not that he is here and they are no longer his kind or people. I shall take him to Zeroun. This is not for debate."

And that seemed to be the end of that: the palamino let the argument go, and stepped back into the group of horse-men that had gathered, glaring bitterly at Harry all the while. The wolf cub shivered, and burrowed deeper into Ajax's forearms. The dark horse-man smiled down at his burden as Harry yawned, and stroked his index finger down the scarlet jagged lightning bolt that cut it's way through his jet black fur. "Sleep well, little one, for you have so many miles to go when you wake."

Unable to keep his eyes open, Harry simply blinked blearily up at the shadowed face of Ajax, before his eyes slid uncontrollably shut.

Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 14th January 1988

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore pulled his head from the fire in his office, and rocked back on his heels before straightening to his full height, suddenly feeling the full weight of his years on his old bones. His eyes, usually light blue twinkles, were dull and dead and distant. His face and crooked nose, creased with age and wrinkles suddenly seemed drawn and tired. He stared into the fire for a long moment, the light from the flames reflecting from his half-moon glasses and bathing his pale skin in a warm amber glow.

"... Albus?" The voice, carrying a vague Scottish lilt, was tentative but it snapped him out of his dark thoughts as though he'd been bowled over by a rampaging Hippogriff.

Tired light blue eyes swivelled in their sockets to regard the woman who had spoken and he sighed heavily as he made his way behind his desk and took a seat behind the dark oak. He intertwined his fingers for a moment, squeezing them tightly around their opposing digits before giving into the urge and reaching for a lemon drop. He selected one of the Muggle sweets from the large, ornately carved pensieve-like bowl that resided on the far corner of his desk and unwrapped it slowly, popping it into his mouth and sucking for one long moment before answering, gesturing that the woman, who was clothed in emerald green robes, should take a seat. She almost reluctantly, but very primly, lowered herself into an overly-stuffed armchair and waited expectantly.

"What we feared has come to pass, Minerva. Young Harry Potter has disappeared from his relative's care."

A gasp from Gryffindor's Head of House was all that Dumbledore needed to know that his Deputy Head understood the implications. For six long years, ever since Harry James Potter had been placed under the care of the Dursley's, they had feared such a thing. Though the Dark Lord Voldemort had long been banished, there were still plenty of his followers lingering in the shadows and resisting capture, who would happily bring pain and death to the young boy who had been their Lord's downfall.

"But the wards, Albus ... you cast the spell yourself ..." McGonagall's voice was tight as she tried to keep from sinking even further into the brilliant red armchair than she already had. The soft squishiness of the furniture seemed to want to swallow her whole.

"And they failed." Dumbledore said heavily.

McGonagall looked down at her hands, folded neatly in her lap. "Death Eaters?" She asked, sounding very much like she didn't want to know the answer.

The Headmaster's twinkle died a fraction more as he answered, "The Ministry has found no magical signatures in the area and Arabella confirms their findings, yet ... residue of lycanthropic activity has been detected. Harry could have been taken from his home by physical force rather than by any magical means."

The woman let out a shaky breath. "What ... what do we do?"

"Send an owl to Remus Lupin. Let him know of the situation." Dumbledore said after a moment's pause, and Minerva nodded immediately, pulling herself from the plush chair and quickly exiting the office. Watching as the door slammed shut behind her, Dumbledore felt a heavy weight settle on his knee. A quiet trill sounded up from his lap, and he glanced down with a small smile to find Fawkes resting on his knee. The phoenix cocked his head at his bonded and trilled for the second time, a reassuringly melodious note.

Nodding to himself, Dumbledore stood from the chair and made his way over to the fireplace, taking a handful of floo powder from the simple jar on the mantle piece. Ducking, he folded his tall but thin body into the alcove and called out sharply, "_Number seven,_ _Wisteria Walk_."

**1 The battle horn I've used for the Centaurs is the Carnyx, an ancient Celtic battle horn which has been reported to sound like something of a cross between a 'fresh-skewered boar and the Loch Ness serpent in heat'. Basically, it scared the bejesus out of enemies, just as it did to Harry. The Celts pretty much dominated Northern Europe once upon a time, from what I've found in my research, and there have been archeological finds in Scotland which suggest the presence of the Carnyx there. So it's not unthinkable that the Centaurs would use one.**

**Didn't Harry break his arm? Does he have like super!super-healing or something: Um ... right. Okay. This is just me being forgetful and inconsistent. Yeah, in the original version of my prologue or chapter one or whatever I called it :sweatdrop: I hinted that I'd broken Harry's arm ... and then promptly forgot all about it since I hadn't originally meant to. I've gone back and edited it out so that he doesn't break anything. As for the _super_!super-healing thing ... well, no. He's going to have accelerated healing, sure, but you're going to have to wait to see just how fast 'accelerated' is. And remember that his leg wound in this chapter healed with the help of herbs and natural medicinal remedies and what not. Merlin bless Centaurs, aye?**

**Um ... hello? Werewolves transform on _full_ moons: Of course they do. Well, werewolves that aren't Harry, anyway. I was sure I'd put this in the disclaimer for my first chapter ... but then I looked back and realised I'd deleted my usual 'title, authoress, disclaimer and preliminary author's notes' from the chapter, so I guess that's a moot point. In this case, all shall be explained in due time (probably whenever Harry finally runs in to Dumbledore). :winks at KitsuneSkye203:**

**So how exactly did Harry get from Surrey to the Forbidden Forest, again: When the explanations finally start flowing, this is something that will be covered then, too. Though I'll admit to being surprised that no one's guessed it - I'm really not trying to catch you out with this. Whatever it sounds like is probably exactly what it is.**

**Lastly, I've gone back and messed around with the dates a little so that the phases of the moon work. I probably wouldn't have bothered 'cept, ironically enough, on the 19th January 1988, there was no moon in the sky whatsoever. Typical, huh? Lol.**


	4. Chapter Four

**Title: **Pack Mentality

**Authoress:** Freyarri

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing but the plot and any OCs that pop up in this story. So I'd like to thank J. K. Rowling for the Harry Potter verse that I so enjoy playing with and Kelley Armstrong for the particular 'breed' of werewolf that Harry's ended up being.

**Summary:** When young Harry Potter, aged seven and a half, is bitten by a werewolf the results are … unexpected, to say the least.

**Author's Notes:** Well, I realised a while back that I'd never gotten around to putting this part into my prologue. That was bad, so I figured I'd add it. Hmm. So, in this chapter we have our first glimpse of Remus, the makings of the _makings_ of an explanation and the next real plot device. Yay. Heh. As a side note, I know as much as I can about the Centaurs without being willing to reread OotP. So any mistakes or OOCness is my fault and my fault alone and won't be getting any better in any chapters that the Centaurs are featured in. Heh.

Lastly, I _know _this chapter is a little … lengthy, and not the most action-packed for the most part. But it's necessary, and a lot of the stuff in here is important for the plot and the development of the cuteness and fluff and knock down, drag out action that I have planned for later. So unfortunately you're going to just have to yuck it up … and wait for chapter five. Lol.

**Ooh, ooh, AND I'm also going to run out of wolf quotes to put at the start of my chapters eventually. So if you have any you really like, whether they be famous, lyrical or something you made-up, send them my way, and I'll credit you if I end up using them.**

**Chapter Four**

_"To look into the eyes of a wolf is to see your own soul - hope you like what you see." - Aldo Leopold._

Wisteria Walk, Surrey, 14th January 1988

Dumbledore straightened and stepped out of the deep alcove with a grace that should have been impossible for someone who had just been spat out by a particularly temperamental fireplace. The living room he stepped into was covered in a rich peach wallpaper which proudly displayed bunches of cream flowers every foot or so along the border. The cloying air was heavy, as though a window hadn't been opened to let any fresh air in for a long time, and it smelled of cats and the unmistakeable, yet unidentifiable, tang of age.

Not pausing to brush off non-existent vestiges of soot as he normally would have or to straighten imaginary creases in his deep purple robes, Dumbledore discreetly slipped his wand from his sleeve, and strode purposefully from the living room and out of the front door. He didn't pause to locate Arabella Figg, the owner of the house and it's fireplace - he knew exactly where she'd be - but instead continued walking down the drive and out onto the street, turning to head for number four Privet Drive.

As unaffected as he was by floo travel, Dumbledore would have much rather apparated to number four. It was quicker and, if he was honest, much more impressive than the use of floo powder. Normally Albus Dumbledore wasn't a wizard given to going out of his way to impress people, but if the people who had taken Harry from the safety and sanctuary of his relative's home were watching his arrival, then Dumbledore would not be loathe at all to admit that he wanted to appear as intimidating and powerful as possible. However, while it seemed as though the wards protecting Harry from malevolent forces while he was under his relative's care had fallen, the anti-apparation and anti-portkey wards were still intact and just as powerful as ever. While that meant that Dumbledore had to walk the two streets from Wisteria Walk to Privet Drive, it also meant that whoever had stolen Harry away that night would have had to physically move a quite possibly conscious and struggling young Harry Potter. That could be traced just as easily as any magical getaway, if not easier.

As Dumbledore finally turned onto Privet Drive, the stars twinkled like chiselled diamond in the inky sky above and a cool breeze swept across his creased skin. Twilight had been threatening when he had first stepped into the fireplace at his office in Hogwarts and at some point during the ride between locations night had finally fallen. Normally floo powder didn't take so long to get a witch or wizard from point A to point B, but Dumbledore himself had overseen the veritable mountain of charms and curses that had been layered on and around all of the floo network connections within a mile radius of The-Boy-Who-Lived's home. Only witches and wizards keyed into the safety catch in the connection could pass, but even then it took time.

Time which could very well prove costly this night. Very costly, indeed.

The suburb of Privet Drive was almost mind-numbingly monotonous. Every house was the exact same size and the exact same shape and the exact same shade of brick. The gardens were all neatly trimmed in geometrical layouts which didn't vary much from neighbour to neighbour; the most wild and nonconformist being Mr and Mrs Harkness who lived at number seven and who had decided to have a circular lawn rather than a perfectly square one. In the drives, and parked out in front of their respective houses, every single car was shiny and new and, regardless of make or colour (though they were all dark shades), all obviously family cars. Even the curtains hanging in the windows were arranged with military precision to hang just so. To say that Professor Dumbledore looked out of place would be an understatement, but he didn't seem to care as he stopped outside number four for a moment, and then turned up the drive and to the door.

Dumbledore rang the bell, a heavy 'ding dong' echoing through the house on the other side of the door. He could hear the almost politely puzzled murmur of voices from within the house, and then a heavy bulk passed in front of the warm amber glow of light that seeped from the window above the bronze knocker. The door opened and a stout, heavily built man with a moustache and no neck peered out. The man's eyes narrowed as he took in Dumbledore's robes and pointed wizard's hat.

"We're not interested in buying anything - " The man said hastily, stepping back and making to slam the door shut.

Ordinarily, Dumbledore would have had the patience and the interest required to play the game that the Muggle had started, and would have let the door shut in his face before knocking again and waiting to see if the man would open the door for the second time. Now, however ... now he just didn't have time. With a flick of his wrist he forced the door open before it could click shut and regarded the man steadily, the twinkle in his eye long gone. "I am not here to sell you anything, Mr. Dursley, but to ask you some questions about your nephew, Harry Potter."

Mr. Dursley's eyes widened and he shot a quick, panicked glance in the direction of the living room. Ah, they had company? Delightful. "He was a freak." The stout man hissed lowly, leaning forwards slightly so he wouldn't have to raise his voice, and all the while trying vainly to close the door in the aged wizard's face, "Just like the rest of you. If he's finally found some pride in himself and gotten himself killed or lost far, far away from me and my family then I see no reason to look a gift horse in the mouth. Now if you would kindly - "

"Stay for some tea? It would be a pleasure." Dumbledore interrupted smoothly, face and voice hard as he stepped past Vernon Dursley and made his way into the living room, the man of the house sputtering in the hall behind him before realising that he could now finally close the front door. He did so, and stomped heavily after Dumbledore.

The wizard looked around the living room tersely as he entered it, inclining his head in greeting as he spotted Mrs Figg seated on the far side of the three-seater sofa, looking as though she was trying her hardest to be as far away as possible from the seven-year-old boy who she was sharing the piece of furniture with. "Ah, Arabella, what a pleasant surprise."

"Albus." Arabella nodded, copying Dumbledore's earlier action with a dark, unhappy smile as she cradled the piping hot cup of tea she'd been nursing closer to her lap.

Out of the corner of his peripheral vision, Dumbledore caught a flash of movement and turned his head slowly, unconcerned, to catch Mrs. Dursley springing to her feet in a mixture of shock and horror. "V-vernon!" She cried, spluttering out a series of garbled gibberish as she pointed at Dumbledore like he was a trout with three heads or some deadly contagion that had taken human form. Her husband rushed to her side, making calming noises and turning to glare at the Headmaster.

"Mummy?" The squeaky voice warbled from the sofa in confusion, and was largely ignored until Petunia realised her baby was in distress and pushed past her husband, rushing over to the seven-year-old and all but collapsing on the settee by his side, putting an arm around the large boy's shoulders and hugging him tight to her. Arabella discreetly inched just that little bit further away, her elderly face warped with distaste.

"Ssh. Its okay, Diddums. Mummy's got you." Petunia procured a strawberry-flavoured lollypop out of no where and presented it to the child as a peace offering to keep the tears at bay. The large boy accepted it, and the brightly-coloured wrapper was lying on the plush cream carpet within seconds. With Dudley distracted, Petunia and Vernon shared a meaningful glance across the expanse of the living room. Petunia nodded and got to her feet, and opened her arms to her son. "Let's get you to bed, sweetheart, you must be tired after your long day."

Dudley blinked blankly up at her before he seemed to catch the meaning behind her words and screwed his face up. His mouth snapped open, the lollypop falling from his lips and sticking to the beige settee. Petunia quickly snatched it up, looking like she was suffering from a mild heart attack when she saw the ruby red stain that had been left on the cushion, before she visibly swallowed back any reaction that she could have possibly had and glanced back up at Dudley, a weak smile fixed on her lips. Dudley sucked in a deep breath and, eyes still open to gauge his parent's reaction, he prepared to wail ...

"_Dudley_. Listen to your mother." Vernon snapped, a harsh bark.

Dudley's mouth snapped shut in shock and he blinked at his father in disbelief. Lips pursed tightly, distressed at how they were being forced to treat their baby, Petunia wrapped her hand around the blonde boy's wrist and led a stunned seven-year-old from the room. Vernon waited until he heard Dudley's bedroom door click shut loudly before he turned angrily to Dumbledore, jabbing a pudgy index finger in the wizard's direction.

"I don't know who it is you think you are, what it is about your freakishness that makes you think that you have the right to blackmail and threaten your way into someone's life - someone who is perfectly normal and decent and everything that your _kind_," Vernon spat the word as though he was swearing, "isn't, but it stops now!" In his rage, Vernon found himself advancing on Dumbledore who, for his part, remained exactly where he was, eyes starting to darken with some unnameable emotion that was hotter than anger, colder than disgust, and more righteous than indignation. Out of the corner of his eye Dumbledore saw Arabella huff and make to rise. He stilled her with the barest shake of his head and she sank back down onto the sofa.

"I apologise for any inconvenience that my actions may have caused you, Mr. Dursley, but the fact remains that your nephew is of a great deal of importance to the wizarding world. If you know anything of his disappearance now is the time to speak." Dumbledore's words were calm but firm and seemed to drain some of the anger out of Mr. Dursley.

The man shook his head, reaching up to draw his palm across the rough expanse of skin that was his chins ... plural as it was. He let out a loud, frustrated breath of air and shook his head again, harder. "The boy took Dudley's dog for a walk a fortnight ago and never came back. We had no part in it."

"And the dog?"

Vernon's gaze, which had been flittering nervously around the living room and occasionally up to the ceiling where his wife and son were, snapped back to Dumbledore's own cerulean stare. For a moment he shifted, mouth opening and closing like a floundering fish as he considered just what to reveal to the formidable Headmaster. "A neighbour found the remains just outside of the park the morning after the boy disappeared." He said finally, gaze shifting back to the carpet. Vernon's challenging and angry state of mind had faded as soon as he had started answering Dumbledore's questions and now he stood here like a condemned man facing his jury and awaiting any retaliatory punishment. "There was nothing left but a lot of meat."

There was a long silence after Vernon's statement, broken up only by Arabella's pained intake of breath. Dumbledore glanced at the elderly woman, a curious glint in his eyes as he saw that she'd already known. It was just the sort of truth that hit you with all of the subtlety of a brick between the eyes every single time you heard it spoken out loud.

After a moment more Mr. Dursley seemed to decide that he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and he added, "The police said some sort of wild animal did it." His confidence seemed to be returning in some sort of second wind and he puffed himself up as he met Dumbledore's eyes again. "So, as you can see, me and my family had nothing to do with the boy's bloody Houdini act. Now get _out_ of _my _house!"

Arabella had apparently had enough. She had been sitting quietly through Mr. Dursley's explanation; occasionally shooting him an annoyed glaring frown when he insulted either Harry or Albus, or gasping in fear for the poor young boy when appropriate. Now, however, she shot to her feet with a speed that belied her age. "Mr. Dursley!"

Dumbledore shook his head and she snapped her mouth shut with a frustrated, and clearly audible, click. "Very well." He said, sounding deceptively amicable. He gestured for Arabella to precede him through the door. She did so, though her movements were stiff with the urge to whirl around and take Vernon Dursley to task. He followed her, and let the door click shut behind him with a whisper of wandless magic.

Arabella was waiting for him in the porch, her hands kneading together and her lined jaw clasped tightly closed. Dumbledore imagined that he could hear her teeth starting to give under the pressure but, of course, he couldn't. Instead all he could hear was the quiet whirring in his ear that seemed to accompany what was otherwise total and complete silence. If he strained he could hear Arabella's distressed breathing and the sound of Mr. Dursley's bulk as he crested the stairs. But he wasn't straining. Instead he simply nodded at Arabella and started down the drive.

She followed quickly, scrambling at his heels and trying to twist around him to see his features. "What now, Albus?"

"Where was the dog's body found?" Dumbledore asked after a split second's hesitation, stopping at the foot of the drive.

Arabella exhaled unsteadily, "the attack happened by the edge of the park. Albus, I - I've read the auror reports of the war and I've seen plenty of war wounds in my day, but … if it was a spell that got that poor dog I've never seen anything like it. If Harry … "

She trailed off and Dumbledore nodded once, twinkle long gone. "I think it best, Arabella, if we don't consider young Harry's fate until we are presented with no other option." He rested his hand reassuringly on Arabella's shoulder. "If you'd be so kind as to show me the … site."

The heavy weight of his hand on her shoulder seemed to be comfort enough and she nodded sharply after a moment, drawing herself up to her full height. "O-of course. The park is just past those houses."

The walk to the park was made in silence. Arabella seemed to be struggling to keep from folding in on herself, but Dumbledore didn't say anything to try and reassure her. Instead he let his thoughts engulf him as he walked, musing over the conundrum that he found himself faced with, until he didn't even notice the curtains twitching in the windows.

They made it to the park in good time. Arabella stopped dead centre in the middle of the road and inhaled wearily. Dumbledore turned his gaze on her, less questioning than knowingly patient, and she helplessly gestured ahead to the strips of yellow police tape that criss-crossed their way across the street in front of them. The wizened old wizard stared at the words on the tape for no more than second, and they left a foul taste in his mouth even though he hadn't spoken them: crime scene.

The crime scene, as it were, was the stubbed end of the street, devoid of all residence, that ended at the park gates. Thick, impenetrable walls of trees rose up on either side of the road and occasionally the weak, fledging wind blew just right and Dumbledore could see glimpses of the street yonder. He wondered if these whispering imposers had been the last thing that young Harry had seen before what ever had happened … had happened.

Once his eyes had drank their fill of the surrounding scenery, Dumbledore turned his heavy, tired gaze to the actual scene.

"Lumos." He needed more light than a simple streetlight or wandless charm could ever hope to provide. Even with his spell shining at full strength, shadows lingered and a dullness remained cast over the world. There was little of interest within the proclaimed crime scene, lending credence to the idea that the local police had simply gotten a tad tape-happy - there were few, if any, incidents in Little Whinging that justified the breaking out of yellow crime scene tape, after all. The police had no doubt been itching to use it.

The foliage he had so carefully considered earlier made sense now, as undamaged as it was, as he saw the only evidence of a struggle: a cracked impact crater the size of a large man's fist in the middle of the road; whatever had occurred here had never so much as reached the pavement. It had been over that quickly … or, alternatively, it had been that one-sided. His eyes clouded and Arabella fidgeted at the edge of his peripheral vision, discreetly reaching up to wipe at her cornea. Dumbledore turned expectantly, his face lined and old. But it wasn't Arabella who spoke next.

"Professor Dumbledore?" The voice was male, young, unassuming and a little hoarse. He sounded concerned. "Arabella."

"Ah, Remus." Dumbledore turned on being addressed, the corners of his lips failing to turn upwards as he regarded the young man striding towards himself and Arabella. "I'm glad you could make it."

Remus J. Lupin was in his late twenties, but already there was a smattering of salt and pepper in his otherwise sandy brown hair. He hadn't had much to celebrate over the last ten years, and the stress had taken its toll on his appearance as surely and steadily as the sun set in the sky every evening and the night fell in its wake. His face was tired and his skin was a few shades too pale to be healthy.

"I got here as soon as I could." Remus asserted, looking like he wasn't quite sure that it had been enough. Had he missed anything? He didn't - his nose twitched. And then again. And once more.

Dumbledore seemed to realise that he didn't have his former student's full attention and his brow creased ever so slightly. "What is it, my boy?"

Remus frowned. He recognised the odours playing under his nose with a degree of certainty that he doubted he'd have even had if they were labelled. There was a scent that was unmistakably canine, some big breed that was more licks than growls; and then the really interesting - bewildering - alarming things. One scent was familiar in the way only a lion can be familiar to a lion. Another werewolf had been here. He sniffed again … but not recently. The other was a particular combination that he'd been set to memorising years ago and one that had never even begun to fade from his sensory banks. Harry.

Sirius had been the first to voice the idea, and Remus had forever let the traitor - _murderer! _- believe that he had been the one to come up with the concept of ingraining Harry's scent into Remus' nose. No matter that he had already started the task of remembering every last thing about his cub, down to every last sniffle, scent included.

Their 'own personal tracker dog for when the kid turns teenage and does the requisite mad dash from purgatory', Sirius had called it, earning himself a solid thwack from Lily. Lily who had possessed quite the arm and Sirius who had never given their ever so slightly dysfunctional family the chance to make it to Harry's teenage years. Sirius who had betrayed them all to Voldemort. Sirius who had killed Lily and James. Sirius who had -

"Remus?" Dumbledore. He sounded worried. Oh, right.

"There was a werewolf here. Not recently. Maybe a week or two ago." Remus replied, a tad shortly. His fists were curled at his side and his eyes were transfixed on a point just past the Headmaster's head. Suddenly though, he let his eyes slip past Dumbledore and to the yellow tape. "And Harry … Harry was here with it."

Arabella started. "A _werewolf_? Oh no," she murmured in a breathy gasp that wasn't quiet enough to really be defined as a true whisper, and turned to Dumbledore, the inflection of her voice suggesting that at least for a moment she'd forgotten who else she was in the company of. Remus didn't mind - he treasured moments like those. When people forgot he was a monster and saw only the human façade that hid the wolf so neatly. But the wolf was always there, always lurking. "Albus - _Harry_!"

"I was afraid of as much." Dumbledore said tiredly, mind fluttering back to the dog's fate. He glanced back at the crime scene, momentarily ignoring Arabella's panicked fretting and the shade of even paler white that Remus' face had turned. Of course, he'd known, but he'd so hoped …

"Professor - _please _tell me this has nothing to do with Harry."

Dumbledore turned to Remus, and let heavy, unguarded eyes do the talking for him. He wondered just what Minerva had included in her explanatory letter to the young man. While she was often seen as iron-plated and matter-of-fact, beneath the strict, seemingly impenetrable exterior, Minerva McGonagall was soft-hearted and given to affectionate tendencies. Perhaps she'd left out some of the more key elements of this conundrum to protect the Dursley's and Remus himself until Dumbledore was present in person to soothe his fears and guilt and protective rage.

Remus let out a pained breath and slumped, shoulders tightening. Dumbledore stepped towards him and rested a comforting hand on his ex-student's shoulder. "This is not the place to speak of such things, my boy. The trees themselves have ears. Perhaps it would be best if you joined me in my office, hmm? We can discuss things further there." Remus nodded slowly. His cerulean gaze flittered to Arabella. "This invitation is, of course, extended to the both of you."

But Arabella shook her head, almost seemingly to come out of a dream. No, nightmare. "Thank you for the offer, Albus, but I have things to do here. The Ministry is - "

"Ah, yes, of course." Dumbledore said like he knew and was just remembering. Maybe he was. He nodded, "Then I shouldn't keep you."

Arabella nodded, recognising the dismissal for what it was, and understanding the unsaid 'inform me of any developments' that was implied. She turned from the two men and headed for her home at a brisk pace. For a moment Dumbledore and Remus simply watched her go, but then Remus let his head swing around to face the esteemed wizard beside him.

"Professor?"

"Come, my boy." Dumbledore said, turning from the crime scene and leading Remus a few feet away from it. While apparating into Privet Drive and the surrounding streets was impossible, apparating out was just as easy as it was any where else in the world. It had been set up that way for the protection of both Harry when he was older and for anyone protecting him should they need to make a quick escape. "To Hogsmeade."

And, with that, Dumbledore disappeared from the street with a quiet pop. Remus glanced over his shoulder at the crime scene for one long, indecisive moment. Then he let out a breath of pained air and disappeared too, following Dumbledore to Hogsmeade.

The Three Broomsticks, Hogsmeade, 14th January 1988

The shot glass, drained of Fire Whiskey, was slammed into the table with the sound of cracking wood. The blonde-haired woman seated at the table seemed oblivious to both the gunshot sound and the way the petite woman laden with the unenviable task of serving her shied away like she'd brandished a machete at her.

"How _dare _he?" The woman hissed, crimson-painted nails biting into the empty glass. Her blue eyes, true Caribbean sea blue, bore holes into the seat opposite her from behind falsely bejewelled spectacles, but she wasn't really seeing. Her heavy-set jaw was clenched and her thickly-pencilled eyebrows were furrowed so tight that it had to be painful. She was the perfect epitome of righteous fury and, Merlin, if she wasn't articulating it. "How dare he _threaten_ me? _Me_! Rita Skeeter! I'm that damnable fool's goddamn pay check and he _knows_ it!"

But the sad fact of the matter was that just wasn't true. Rita hadn't been _anyone's_ pay check in a long time. Not since the early 80s when her report on the Ludo Bagman trial had pioneered the way for _all_ gossip in _all_ papers. Everyone had wanted her. Everyone had adored her. He had been damned lucky to get her, and _this _was how he repaid her?

On the other side of the table, a paunchy man swallowed slightly, unerringly attracting Rita's attention. Her eyes narrowed, jaw tensed and ground together with the sound of cracking teeth. Suddenly she bolted to her feet like a shotgun blast, and spun away, clicking her fingers over her shoulder, "Come, Bozo, we're leaving this … pit of stench and sickening failure." She said, loud enough to carry to the bar. Madame Rosmerta shot a fiery, heartfelt glare in the almost-but-not-quite-sacked-yet reporter's direction, but it went unnoticed as Rita continued to sashay out of the door. "Before it starts catching."

The night air, as she stepped out into it, did little to soothe Rita.

So he wanted a story, did he? A story or she was out, was it? Rita's upper lip curled as she felt Bozo's lumbering presence at her back. She could remember the embarrassment of being pulled into _his_ office in the middle of the working day, the snickers of people behind her back as she walked down the aisle between cubicles. The whispers. The smirks and mutters of getting hers. Ooh, she'd show _them_.

Hissing to herself as she went, Rita continued out onto the street, heels clomping on the cobbled pathway. She'd only gotten five paces when the first, damn near silent 'pop' rang out through the still night air. Reflexes honed from years of journalistic snooping had Rita twisting into a shadow, and dragging Bozo after her by the scruff of the neck. He spluttered in alarm and indignant protest, but Rita slammed her large hand across his mouth, and just in time, too, as Albus Dumbledore appeared in the middle of the street and looked … warningly in their direction. Hidden in the shadows, and erroneously confident that Dumbledore couldn't see her, Rita paid his expression no heed, pursing her lips together in thought.

What was Albus Dumbledore, esteemed Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry doing in the middle of Hogsmeade on a dead winter's night such as this?

Another pop echoed along the street, this one much louder than the first, and a worried-looking, bedraggled werewolf took in his surroundings with a blink and a sniff. As could be predicted, his head almost immediately shot around so that he was staring into the shadows that cloaked the journalist and her camera man. Rita's breath hitched in her throat - how good _was _a werewolf's night vision …?

Remus opened his mouth to speak, eyes narrowing and regarding her with a weary, unfriendly stare. Before the sounds could form words in his throat, however, Dumbledore cut in with a swift, pointed word. The sandy-haired wolf ducked his head reluctantly, and then followed the Headmaster in the direction of Hogwarts.

Rita waited until she was sure they were long gone and out of hearing range, and then she relinquished her grip against Bozo's mouth, not so discreetly wiping the saliva away on his robe leg as she stepped past him and out into the street.

"Well, well, well. Tell me, Bozo: what do you get when the greatest light wizard of the time and a known dark creature show up in such a circumspect place in the middle of the night?"

Bozo swallowed and floundered as he stepped up behind her, staring after Remus and the Headmaster in very much the same way she was, only with a great deal more confusion. "I … I don't know, ma'am."

Rita grinned, a predatory flash of teeth that was threatening and mean and anticipatory all at the same time, as she stared after the duo's retreating backs. "A story. What you get is a _damn _good story."

The Forbidden Forest, Hogwarts, 15th January 1988

When Harry awoke he was buffeted against soft leather and cushy feathers. Everything was warm and moulded to his body like the bedding had been built especially for him. For a long moment he hung there, torn between consciousness and blissful oblivion and then he felt it: a presence was hovering over him, and fingers were carefully fluttering over his hind leg. His eyes fluttered open.

Everything around him was a shade of green or brown and held in shadows fractions darker than the outside world. The air was cool and clean, and the fingers fell from his fur as he shifted so that he could sniff the surrounding air better. From his new sitting position Harry took in his surroundings. There was a roof high above his head made out of tree trunks and wide, thick leaves. The ground around the nest that he'd been nestled in was made of cut bark and the outside world was hidden from view by curtains of tanned hide.

But they didn't block out the sounds. From outside the thick sheets of leather Harry could hear a quiet, sort of composed chaos of everyday life. The sound of voices laughing quietly. The sound of people talking. The sound of people passing. And, at the very edges of his hearing, the clash of staffs and grunts of exertion and, even beyond that, the sound of the ever present wildlife that surrounded them.

He was alone in the hut, for that was what it was, bar from one of the Centaurs lying by his little nest. Harry cocked his head in the Centaur's direction, sniffing the air curiously. His nose only confirmed what his eyes were telling him: female.

The female centaur was slighter than her male counterparts who had rescued him from the acromantulas, and as opposed to the bulky upper body strength that Ajax had possessed, there was only the vaguest hint of muscle tone beneath her pale skin. Her hair, both on her head and on her equine body, was a dark brown with elusive hints of coppery red and her eyes were a dark, mossy green leagues less pure than Harry's own otherworldly stare. Her face was covered in a smattering of freckles and, Harry noted with some of the detached objectivity that only came from children observing adults, that she was dangerously close to being pretty and not much else: her forehead was a smidgeon too high, her nose a tad too long, and her lips just that little bit too pursed. She was wearing a brown leather tank top and there was a white lily threaded behind her ear. She was smiling at him.

"Finally, you awake. You have been sleeping a long time, young cub." The young female stated in a dreamy, detached voice. "Zeroun was starting to get impatient - he would like to see you before sun down tonight. But first I must check your bandages … "

And only then did Harry notice the leather bands pulled taunt around his flank where the acromantula had managed to skewer him. His nose twitched as he stretched around to study them, and he couldn't repress the automatic disgruntled grunt that emitted from his throat as he jerked his head backwards away from the putrid scent.

The sound of misty laughter reached his sensitive ears, and Harry's head snapped around to glare indignantly at the Centaur. Still smiling with mirth, the Centaur reached for him. "Calm yourself, young pup - it is nothing but a poultice to heal your injuries. The ingredients for which are naturally grown in our Forest."

Harry eyed the hands reaching for him distrustfully, and backed up away from the extended limbs. Though the Centaur immediately stopped her approach, he continued to shuffle backwards on his small nest … until he ran out of nest to retreat to and his hind legs lost their purchase, sending him toppling to the bark-covered ground. There was another spurt of distant laughter, and the sound of bark being disrupted. The noise caused by the Centaur's hooves as she rounded the nest and crouched back by his side was muffled, but Harry still heard it. He peered up at the Centaur's smiling face and let a wobbly, rough little growl escape his lips. Her smile grew into an adoring twist of her lips.

"I apologise for laughing, little one. My name is Althea; I wish only to help. Would you be more comfortable, perhaps, if I called for Ajax? He was the one who saved you from the beasts." Althea provided gently, kneeling on her forelegs before him.

Harry paused and then scrambled to his paws. He felt a dull pain in his hind leg, like the skin already knitted was tearing apart and he grimaced, a funny little scrunch of his nose in wolf form. Tossing his head, Harry ignored it, and wobbled forwards to Althea. He butt his head against her foreleg and let out a little yip of consent. It was okay; she didn't need to find Ajax.

Althea, whose face had morphed into one of concerned worry, smiled softly and reached down to collect Harry in her hands. "Very well. Let's get you comfortable, little cub. You shall see Ajax shortly regardless. He has been stopping by every day to the exact hour in the hopes of seeing you awake. Zeroun has asked that he report upon your condition, also. I would surmise that you shall be receiving your share of visitors soon. You should rest until then." Althea twisted around and gently deposited Harry back into his little nest. She shifted slightly on the bark until she was more comfortably facing him and then she reached for the bandages that covered much of his back leg.

It didn't hurt when she unravelled the white cloth, a clear sign that the dressings had been changed often during his slumber. A firm hand on his shoulder, soft and scented from the herbs and pastes used in his poultice, kept his head in place and prevented him from twisting to inspect his wound himself. "Careful, young one, your wound is still as new as Mars is bright in the sky."

But Harry whimpered and squirmed, pressing insistently against the hand holding him in place and, as she finally pulled the last of the bandage from his fur, Althea allowed him a look at his leg. The poultice had prevented any swelling, and so he got a good, clear look at the gash. It was a healthy pink and the bleeding had long since stopped. The skin had knitted together successfully, if a bit tenuously. Just looking at the nearly healed puncture, it would have been impossible to guess that Harry's entire hind leg had been ran through.

Althea studied his leg for a long while. When her index finger skimmed along the middle of his wound, Harry hissed and snapped at her hand. The look she gave him was more reproachful than her usual mellow gaze, and he whimpered, nuzzling his head back against the downy side of his nest. Althea brought the pad of her finger up to her face and smiled.

"There is no blood. This is good news. The poultice has worked to prevent bacterial infection - provided you are careful, I see no reason for you to go without bandages." Althea smiled tenderly down at the wolf cub that Harry was and he snorted in empathetic agreement. As much as he appreciated the medical aid that he was so unaccustomed to, he'd prefer that his movements were not restricted by something so obvious against his pitch black fur.

Harry scrambled back up to his feet, testing his weight on his newly approved hind leg, and Althea didn't move to stop him. He yelped slightly as he tried to move it: it was stiff and there was a dull ache centred around his wound, but otherwise it felt as good as new.

Harry had just bounded down from the nest that he'd been sleeping on earlier when a large form eclipsed the light from the outside world. Harry started and his head shot around to the hut's entrance. The entrance and exit of the hut was a strip of leather that hadn't been bound together by the leather string that bound the rest. Part of it had been hung back against a wooden pole implanted into the ground near the hut for such a purpose to allow fresh air to circulate. Now a large, sandy-yellow form was standing in front of it, peering distastefully at Harry with hard, angular features.

"Fjord, greetings." Althea got to her feet slowly, hooves scuffing against the bark as she turned to meet the newcomer head on. Harry, recognising the palomino from the Forest and the battle between the Centaurs and the Acromantula, skittered quickly away from the no man's land he was currently standing in and behind Althea's left front hoof.

It hit his seven and a half year old brain for the first time just then how surreal and impossible this situation was. Before he'd been too relieved and too young and still half-asleep to appreciate that he was being tended by a half-woman, half-horse hybrid that by all rights couldn't exist. But now his brain was jolted into highly unwelcome logic and the realisation that no where in any of his school books had there been mention of such a thing as a horse-man. He stared in uneasy awe up at Althea's belly and then to the angry horse-man standing before them and shrank in on himself. How could - ?

Fjord's blue eyes followed Harry's progress across the bark floor and behind Althea's protective hoof and frowned. His mouth opened and - then suddenly closed as his head shot to his right and his frown deepened. Another horse-man joined him at the flap, one infinitely darker and yet infinitely more friendly. Ajax. Fjord snorted in derision, and then turned away, his hooves clomping solidly on the compact dirt as he trotted off.

Ajax watched him go for a long while with a regretful frown on his face before turning back to the hut and spotting Harry. His frown faded and a relieved smile took its place, creasing the corners of his mouth.

"Our young friend is awake. I was starting to wonder." Ajax said, and the black horse-man ducked his head as he entered the hut. "Zeroun will want to see him."

Althea frowned vaguely, "Zeroun would want to see him _now_?" She lifted the hoof that Harry was still hiding behind and nudged the wolf cub out into the open a little before placing it back on the ground behind the pup.

Ajax nodded, and his smile collapsed into what seemed to be an otherwise perpetual frown. "The Eternal One wishes to speak with him. It sounded of utmost importance - Zeroun himself has been forbidden to question the cub further before she has seen him. Zeroun wishes for their meeting to take place as soon as can be done."

That drew an understanding nod from Althea and she pushed Harry further towards Ajax with her hoof. "Go now, little one, Ajax shall be with you."

The sudden push of Althea's hoof against his butt caught Harry by surprise and he stumbled forwards a few paces, nearly tripping over his own paws. For a long, teetering moment, it was touch and go as to whether or not he'd be able to keep his paws beneath him, but Ajax trotted quickly across the distance between them and scooped him up before the question of his stability and balance could really be answered. The Centaur's long, darkly skinned fingers curled around Harry's middle as he hoisted the wolf cub up to eye level, squeezing his digits together gently and indenting his fur.

From his new vantage point, eye to eye with the larger creature, Harry cocked his head to one side fast enough to warrant whiplash, and inquisitively regarded Ajax. He was rewarded with a serene half-smile in return, and then Harry found himself being returned to solid ground.

"Come, wolf cub, the Eternal One awaits your council." Ajax gifted Althea with a smile that seemed somehow more intent and aware even though it was just as disconnected as a Centaur's facial expression always seemed to be, and then turned and left the hut, gesturing for Harry to follow.

The wolf cub did so after a questioning glance back at Althea earned him a reassuring nod and distracted twitch of her lips. Giving a startled little yip when he realised Ajax wasn't so much as waiting for him, Harry scrambled out of the hut and into the midday sun.

The sun was warm on Harry's back, easily heating up his heavy, winter coat. At first Harry was surprised, both because it was winter and that particular British season wasn't celebrated for being good beach weather, and because in the heavily dense forest in which he'd ran and dodged and leaped for his life what felt like only minutes earlier, it was hard to believe that any light at all could penetrate the canopy. He looked up, pausing momentarily so he didn't over balance, and blinked.

It was blindingly obvious that the Centaur community was situated bang in the centre of an impressively - _awe-inspiringly _- large clearing. The sky above the tree line was cerulean and clear from all clouds and disturbances. However, as Harry lowered his head to the forest floor, the air trapped between the trees surrounding the clearing darkened progressively until it was an almost tangible, writhing thing prowling along the mist-covered ground.

The clearing was full of huts identical to the one that Harry had been sleeping in previously, all in different colour leathers, but there was a perimeter around the settlement: a ten metre barrier of nothing but empty space and the odd weed between the Centaur's and the rest of the Forest. Like some sort of flat moat.

Realising suddenly that he'd been in a world of his own, Harry snapped awake and bolted after the lazily retreating form of Ajax.

The hut in which Althea had been taking care of him was roughly in the middle of the settlement, and would have been exactly so had it not been for the larger, black hut that erupted from that spot, ornately decorated with gold and silver and mercury-coloured patterns of planetary orbit and constellations. The plainer hut was practically stitched onto the side of the larger - they were that close. While most of the settlement was a hodgepodge of huts, worn, winding trails leading from one place to another and smaller clearings, there was a straight, unobstructed road leading directly from Althea's hut to the perimeter. It was this road that Ajax lead Harry down.

"The main road in and out of Centaris." Ajax explained to Harry as he walked slowly down the road, his pace modified to accommodate Harry's injury.

Curious, Harry glanced around at his surroundings as he trotted with a barely noticeable limp after Ajax. As they walked down the road, Harry could see Centaurs standing outside their huts, talking in mellow voices; staring at the day sky, as though seeing the invisible, but ever present stars; trading commodities between each other. And all of them - every single last one - stopped what they were doing when they saw Harry. And glared. Somehow Harry didn't think that Fjord was the only one in Centaris who didn't particularly like him.

Ducking his head, Harry felt his ears pin themselves unhappily to the back of his head, and his shoulders slouched closer to the ground as he streaked forward and put himself directly underneath Ajax, who seemed blissfully unaware of the attention they were receiving. Harry's unnatural green eyes remained locked on the faces of the Centaur's eyeing him unpleasantly, though they skirted uneasily around their eyes. He snarled a warning - _leave me alone_. But they didn't, and didn't avert their gaze, though they didn't make any move towards him, either.

The Centaurs continued to stare unwaveringly, their heads swivelling on their necks to follow Ajax and Harry's progress, as the unlikely duo made their way down the main road out of Centaris at a pace which was much to slow for Harry's liking. As such, he was skittish under Ajax, darting about like a kitten on catnip. Of course, now Harry was more canine than his ethereal eyes seemed to suggest, but the simile didn't seem to mind.

They made it to the outskirts of Centaris without any of the Centaurs doing anything that was more threatening than a heartfelt glare. Standing, waiting for them, was a middle-aged looking Centaur, who had trickles of grey hairs threaded amongst the roan.

"Zeroun, Lord Gazer of the Skies," Ajax greeted, bowing low on his forelegs and causing Harry to skitter out from underneath him with a slightly strangled yelp. The black Centaur reached around, and scooped Harry up in one large palm before depositing him on the ground in front of the roan Centaur. "May I present to you the wolf child, healed and well and prophesised."

Zeroun, the roan, eyed Harry with kind eyes, and then nodded with a severity that contrasted the warmth radiating from the chocolate brown orbs. "Very well, Ajax. She is waiting. I shall take the cub from here."

She? Prophesised? Huh? Harry cocked his head in blatant confusion. But he couldn't ask. His lack of human vocal chords made any form of communication beyond well-timed head tilting, ear pricking, and the odd yelp or whimper impossible.

Ajax nodded and rose to his feet. Without so much as a second glance at Harry, the black horse-man left, wandering lazily back down the main road, headed for Althea's hut. Harry watched him go and moved to follow, but the roan's hand closed around the scruff of his neck and he was hoisted into the air, legs still wheeling. "No, cub, you are to come with me; the Lady of the Forest has waited most patiently for your audience."

Harry was carried, protesting in whimpers and squirming, across the flat moat that circled Centaris. It took them only minutes to reach the woodland beyond, but it felt like hours and Zeroun's hands, though gentle, were calloused and grazed against Harry's wound with every squirm.

Eventually the wolf pup calmed and allowed himself to be ferried deeper into the forest.

The walked along beaten tracks which were overgrown with ambitious weeds and branches. Zeroun protected Harry's body from the brunt of the foliage as they progressed further away from Centaris, but there was no one to protect the Centaur and the going slowed to a crawl.

No words were spoken during the trek: Zeroun was too busy fighting with the flora and Harry, struggles ceased, was looking around him with a quiet sort of awe. But there was no plant alive that was interesting enough to keep the curious seven-year-old's eyes away from the Centaur carrying him. The shock of so many traumatic events in such a short period of time was wearing off now, bringing with it a sense of simple curiosity that only a child under ten could possibly feel in such circumstances. At the age of still believing in fairies and unicorns and in the _magic_ that his Uncle tried to so fiercely deny, the concept of a half-horse, half-man carrying him through a forest that also housed a colony of gigantuan spiders was not nearly as unbelievable as it might have been had he been only five years older. Which was, all in all, probably a good thing, as it was all about to get a whole lot stranger.

At first glance, the clearing that the two came across after twenty-five minutes of walking in what, as far as Harry could tell, was pretty much a perfectly straight line, was empty. It was lighter than one might have imagined, with streams of sunlight somehow finding a way to twist through the trees. The warmth that the sunlight provided seemed to staying in the clearing, the trees acting as corral. But, natural sauna that this place was, Harry saw no reason for him to be brought he -

He froze in his bewildered examination of his surroundings. Then his nose twitched. The combined scent of pine and earth and something distinctly female filled his nostrils until it was all his olfactory sense was aware of.

And then the trees moved.

Only it wasn't the trees, it was something in them. Something that just appeared in the uppermost branches, and slid rather than slithered to the ground, twisting sinuously around the tree trunk of the tree and stepping softly onto the soil.

It - she - was a woman, Harry realised with a slight jolt as she stepped towards him, powerful and calm all at once. She was tall and willowy as she strode towards the wolf and the Centaur, naked but for some conveniently placed strips of leather. Her hair was a light, golden-streaked brown and her eyes were a dark green, the colour of browning moss. Her skin was lightly tanned, and the aloof smile on her lips looked strangely out of place. Like her attitude didn't belong with her body.

Zeroun bowed to her, placing Harry on the ground and then, without so much as a backwards glance to Harry, left the clearing. The sounds of him crashing through the dense undergrowth echoed in his wake.

Harry stumbled up onto his paws, unsteady again. The woman's gaze switched to him, and he staggered backwards a few paces, legs wind milling as he scrambled to put distance between him and this new sensory overload. For now that she was closer, he didn't just smell the earth and female. He also smelled power. Lots and lots of power.

And then she smiled, a genuine twist of her lips, and her eyes softened to warm pools. "I've been waiting a long time to meet you … Harry Potter."

**A/N: You were going to get an explanation for a lot of things this chapter, but then I got a review mentioning that I hadn't updated in seven months and I kind of went: 'Ohmigod, they're right!' So I'm putting up what I managed to write in those seven months and the explanation will just have to wait next chapter. So thanks to IsiwaruOfCkaloatia for reminding me that I was really, really overdue for an update. Don't any of you guys let me get away with doing that again, yeah?**

**Lastly, since this was such a dry chapter (though I have to admit I enjoyed doing the dialogue after all of the Werewolf!Harry-who-can't-speak-because-he's-a-_wolf_ stuff) I've decided to give you a snippet of what might be coming next chapter. Just to keep you interested and reading (and hopefully reviewing):**

It was Charlie who spotted the cowering wolf cub first. He shoved his broomstick into his older brother's surprised hands and cautiously closed the distance between himself and the black animal.

Harry's emerald eyes widened and he tried to scramble backwards, but Charlie, apparently sensing Harry's intentions, dug into his pocket and produced a strip of bacon. It was cold, but the scent of it still reached Harry's nose. His stomach rumbled and he paused in his getaway. Charlie grinned, and offered the meat. After a moment's hesitation, Harry crept forward and snatched it. He swallowed it down whole with some difficulty and then nuzzled Charlie's pocket for more.

Laughing, the seeker reached out to stroke Harry's head, gently scratching behind his ears as the rest of the victorious Gryffindor Quidditch team stood back and watched uncertainly.

Harry let an ambitious Charlie scoop him up, and eagerly downed the next strip of bacon when it was offered. Stomach sated even after such a small meal, Harry tentatively licked Charlie's cheek as the Gryffindor turned to present the wolf cub to the team and to his brother.

"What do you say, Bill?" Charlie asked, "can I keep 'im?"


	5. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

"_Once the strings of fate have been tangled, they can never be undone." - Kikyo, 'Inuyasha', as suggested by PsychicLunar._

_The Forbidden Forest, 15th January 1988_

"I've been waiting a long time to meet you … Harry Potter."

The words seemed to echo around the clearing. They pounded into Harry's skull like each syllable was solid brick and he stood there, stunned and fearful. She knew who he was. Nothing good had ever come of _anyone_ knowing who he was - a freak. Ungrateful ingrate. Dirty child. Shameful boy.

As though each new recriminatory thought was a two by four between the eyes, Harry suddenly scrambled backwards, yelping and tossing his head with each misjudged step, but never taking his emerald eyes away from the woman.

Who was she? What did she want with him? How did she know his name? How was she going to punish him?

The questions shot through Harry's mind in time with his tripping heart beat. In his moment's of distraction, Harry didn't notice the abrupt dip in the ground until he'd already tumbled headlong backwards over it. Squeaking, he hastened to his feet, but a hand between his shoulder blades stopped him before he could straighten fully.

He hadn't even heard her move.

Harry tried to skirt out from underneath her massaging fingers, but they tightened around the scruff of his neck and held him in place. He snapped a growl at her hand, but the lady didn't seem to notice - she certainly didn't flinch. Instead she just continued her ministrations, carefully working to flatten a particularly stubborn ruff of fur just behind his ears.

Under such soothing actions, Harry's muscles loosened and he calmed despite himself.

The clearing was surprisingly peaceful for somewhere within a Forest that housed a colony of giant spiders and a Centaurian village. Even straining, which Harry was loathe to do, he couldn't hear so much as a warbling bird. All there was, was the rustling of the trees in the practically non-existent breeze and the bum-bump of his own heart. He felt rather than heard the air as it stole in and out of the lady's lungs and the blood as it was pumped around her body - it was more of a presence than any easily discernable sound.

As though she sensed the direction of his thoughts - perhaps she saw his ear twitching - the lady spoke from where she was kneeling in the dirt beside him, her voice softer than feather down and curiously unaccented, "magic keeps the still."

_Magic? _Harry thought, lifting his snout from where it was scenting the soil.

"My, you have a lot to learn, Harry Potter," the lady continued, sounding distinctly amused. The tone seemed to wrap around Harry, quilting him in a warm blanket and tickling his stomach with absent fingers. A niggling in the back of Harry's head frowned at this, but the wolf cub found himself far too content now to care much for such trivialities at all.

The lady had continued slowly, her voice low so as to not pierce the quiet of the clearing, "enjoy your ignorance while it lingers, Harry Potter - the taste of powerful magic flavours the air around you. Your oblivion will not survive very long."

She said it so matter-of-factly, like she was merely commenting on which monarch held the throne in present times. But then she gasped - a put-on sound that coincided with a stutter in the circles she was tracing into one of his ears.

"Listen to me, stating and citing and supposing while you do not even know my name," the lady sounded appalled at her lack of manners and an apologetic wave consumed Harry. "Or, rather, _names_. I have many … a dubious honour you shall soon come to understand the annoyance of, I'm afraid, Harry Potter, but enough of such things. You may call me Brigid. Or," she added swiftly, tapping a finger against his head to forestall any protest, "you may call me such when you again have the required mechanics of human speech. Until then I take no insult from you being incapable of doing so. I understand that your affliction - if it may indeed be called such - imposes certain restrictions. Though, if I may say, the benefits seem to far outweigh any current limitation."

She frowned then, gnawing on her lower lip in thought. The pause in her monologue stretched until Harry shifted his weight against the ground and twisted back to blink at her in concern. Her eyes were glazed, though aligned in Harry's general direction. The hand on his back had stilled to the point that it would have felt more alive if rigor mortis had set in.

Not knowing what to do, Harry tried to squirm out of her grip, but the sudden movement seemed to ensnare Brigid's attention and her eyes snapped to his, questioning annoyance giving way to contrite indulgence in a single, careful blink.

"My apologies, Harry Potter - the temptation was more than I could resist." Brigid said slowly. Apparently sensing his confusion, she continued, fingers returning to their earlier movements. Harry let out a breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding as she spoke, "it is unique - the way of your magic. The chance to look upon such a thing was perhaps the first and last that there ever would be and I am ashamed to confess that I …" Brigid trailed off, sounding distinctly uncomfortable, a tone that twisted Harry's stomach. "I should have asked permission first, Harry Potter. My apologies."

Harry wasn't entirely sure what she was apologising for, or even if an apology was necessary, and it showed. He snorted something noncommittal and Brigid sighed lightly.

"You have no concept or notion of what I am apologising for, do you?" Brigid asked, though it seemed to be a rhetorical question. She sounded odd - her voice was guilt and anger and regret mixed all into a single palette. For a moment Harry's gut clenched, but then he realised that her anger, wherever it had flared from, was not directed towards him. He relaxed again. "I shall come to you again when you are grown and again two-legged. Not for what is destined or what is already written, but to apologise for my intrusion."

Brigid didn't pause to allow for Harry to toss his head or lift a shoulder - as was the limit of his side of the conversation - like she had before. Instead, she ploughed straight on, and Harry got the impression that, whatever she was seeing through her eyes, it wasn't the other side of the clearing.

"You're beautiful, did you know that, Harry Potter?" Brigid sighed, letting a fingertip flutter across his eyelids. "Inside you're exploding - the energy of a million magical evolutions is twisting and pounding through you every second … sunlight and ocean and forest and blood all in one undoubtedly volatile concoction. Your power saved your life. Your power brought you here. And even now your power is fighting the virus that threatens to bring ruin to all of the hope that the world has left. To watch it is exquisite …" she trailed off, and he could practically taste her hesitation on his tongue.

Harry whined an encouragement and she tugged lightly on his ear. 'Be patient', her actions said, 'be patient and learn to do more than just _hear_.'

Brigid's attention was no longer on Harry. Instead, it had slipped past him to rest on a small, shrivelled bluebell, half-smothered by the ugly weeds coiling around it. Harry followed her line of sight and lifted his snout with a small furrow of what eyebrows he had left as he twisted his canine body so he could hold himself up straight.

Harry may have known little to nothing about these magical beasts lurking in this forest, or magical evolutions, or even about his seven times tables, but he did know quite a bit about bluebells - Number Four Privet Drive had won the neighbourhood award for Best Garden twice in a row and was firm favourite for stealing the prize this year, too, even though the year had yet to really properly begin. While Aunt Petunia had been keen on soaking up the praise, and posing for the local Gazette with a trowel in her hand, Harry was the one who had done much of the work. And if there was one thing he knew about Bluebells, it was that they didn't flower until June.

Brigid rocked back onto her feet from where she was kneeling next to Harry and crossed the few metres to the fledgling Bluebell. She sank gracefully down to the soil before the flower. Harry hesitated a second and then lurched forwards towards her, nearly careening into her thigh as he tried to stop his impromptu burst of motion. Somehow, he managed to skid to a halt before hitting the seemingly oblivious woman, his tail wind milling to try and disperse his momentum.

The woman in question had her eyes locked on the suffocating Bluebell. For a long moment Harry thought that Brigid had forgotten he was there but then, as she reached out so that her hand was hovering, palm down, over the Bluebell, she spoke: "sometimes all things need is a little …" Brigid paused and Harry stared up at her face in concern, watching as the bridge of her nose wrinkled in concentration. Her eyes slid shut. And it started to happen. The weeds entrapping the Bluebell peeled away, running from the dark green glow radiating from Brigid's fingertips. It was like electric - it sizzled and popped, bursting from Brigid's skin in daring loops of static before arcing back to her nails. The glow starting to envelope her hand twinkled and crackled, and seemed to glitter and spark. The Bluebell flourished under the glow, uncurling its stem and stretching ever higher. It was in full bloom when Brigid stopped, clenching her fist and letting the aura dissipate. She smiled softly and finished, "… push. I always did so adore the underdog."

The 'speaking of which' was left unsaid as she blinked and glanced down at Harry. He was crouched by her ankles, his mouth gaping open to reveal the glistening white peaks of his largest incisors. Brigid laughed lightly, a sound which Harry would later describe as bells pealing. Either way, it made his heart lift and his stomach do ambitious acrobatics.

"I shall restate what I said earlier: you have a lot to learn, young Harry Potter. A lot to learn, indeed."

Harry managed to force his mouth closed with an audible click. Brigid took that as a cue to continue, lowering her outstretched hand till it rested lightly between Harry's fluffy ears, and then humming a haunting melody _1 _as she took her time remembering where she had left off.

"Unfortunately, I am not the only one who thinks so," she said abruptly, and it took Harry more than a second to figure out what she was talking about - to remember what Brigid had been saying before she had noticed the Bluebell. "You are being hunted as we speak, Harry Potter, by both collectors of beautiful things and those who would wish to eradicate them. Plots have been set into motion. Darkness is starting to creep into the edge of my vision. He has returned, Harry Potter, and He is enraged. He will tear the world apart to find you and leave burning wreckage in His wake. I can no longer see your path, but it is not heading in the direction either of us would wish it to take."

Brigid looked away sharply, but she needn't have bothered. Despite, or perhaps because of, Brigid's weighty words and the quietly distraught tone they had been delivered in, the emotional strain finally caught up with him. The attack, the weeks spent in his own self-contained Hell as his magic fought and adapted the werewolf virus, his encounter with the Acromantulas, the obvious suspicion most of the Centaurs felt towards him, and the forgotten about demands of his stomach all came crashing down on him like a Boeing 747. He was out like a light before he had even realised he was feeling drowsy, and now only the occasional twitch of his paws disturbed his sleep.

The lady noticed this a second later and she closed her mossy eyes, taking a moment to collect herself. When they opened again, they glistened slightly, though it was probably a trick of the light. For what seemed like hours she just sat there, legs tucked neatly underneath her as she carefully massaged Harry's ears. The clearing was still silent, and she still made no sound. She sat listening to the rise and fall of Harry's fur-covered chest, before ducking her head and opening full lips to break the quiet with a murmur.

"No doubt you are feeling very far from home, Harry Potter. Or, rather, from where you have laid down your head all these past years. You must be scared, but you must understand that home is not what you are walking away from … it's what you're fighting for." Brigid sucked in a deep breath, though Harry wasn't aware of it, and she whispered, "I only hope, for all of our sakes, that you find it … Harry."

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 15th January 1988_

Remus Lupin was feeling decidedly high strung.

He hadn't slept at all last night, too busy cursing the Headmaster in languages that would have made even Severus Snape grudgingly impressed, and worrying about Harry. It was clear that something was going on - Remus didn't need Dumbledore, who had disappeared to attend to 'urgent business' soon after arriving back at Hogwarts and hadn't been seen by the agitated werewolf since, to tell him that. After all, you didn't scent a werewolf and a young, evidently missing, child together at the same place and the same time and then put your money on the happy ending.

Remus growled as he remembered what Dumbledore had said before disappearing with the letter that a tight-lipped McGonagall had met him at the gates with. What could possibly be more important than the safety of James and Lily's son?

He felt a flare of frustrated anger towards Professor Dumbledore and then a wave of burning shame directed at himself. Who was he to question the Headmaster? Dumbledore had cared for James and Lily just as much as Remus himself had. He would never do anything to hurt them, or their child. If his business was of such import then he did not need the distraction Remus would provide.

Pressing his palm against his forehead, Remus found comfort in his own body heat and sank into a plush chair. Previously, he had been pacing the rooms provided for him overnight, his long body stalking like a malnourished jungle cat.

_Wrong animal,_ Remus thought bitterly. If he hadn't been a werewolf, he could have had Harry since that fateful Halloween. He could have protected him, kept him close, warded off werewolves and other creatures of the night. Remus's lips quirked upwards into a momentarily bittersweet smile as he imagined checking under Harry's bed for monsters and poking around Harry's closet with a drawn wand … just in case.

Remus suddenly tensed and his head shot up. A werewolf: creature of the night. What in Merlin's name had a seven year old boy been doing out, presumably alone, at night? Had he sneaked out, shimmying down the drain pipe like James used to do? Or maybe he had been running away, fuelled by a temper that would have put Lily's outbursts to shame.

The werewolf hoped so - the only other alternative he could think of was too horrible to bear.

Shaking his head, and forcing himself to settle on his inherent personality theory, Remus glanced up at the clock. It was getting late and he was still cooped up in the plush red and gold rooms that Professor McGonagall had so kindly found for him the night before. Where was Dumbledore?

No sooner had he articulated the question in his mind's eye (or should that be ear?) did Remus realise he was thinking in circles. Deciding that it was both unproductive and unhealthy, Remus once again turned his attention outwards. However, this time, instead of looking at the clock face, he glanced towards the tall, sturdy-looking wooden bookcase in the corner of the room. It was packed full of books of varying thickness, size and colour.

Remus had already worked his way through two of the thinner tomes after he'd become bored of staring at candlelight: '_A Thousand Conspiracy Theories They Don't Want You to Know About'_ by Parrie Noah and _'Corsets and Bonnets and Testosterone, Oh My!' _by Irma Sheila. Since he was starting to suspect that he was going to be here a while, he couldn't see the harm in just flipping through another. Though perhaps this time one which sounded a little more respectable, Remus thought, his bones creaking as he stood from his seat and carefully made his way across the room to the book case.

None of the books there really caught his eye. Narrowing his eyes Remus moved along the shelf, running the tip of his index finger along the spines as he scanned the titles.

Suddenly he stopped, finger resting on a mere slip of a book, which couldn't possibly have been more than five pages thick. Quirking a single brow in curiosity, Remus pulled it from where it was wedged between two encyclopedia sized volumes and then glanced at the front cover. The book was black, simple and unassuming. Scrawled across the front of the leather bound tome was barely legible silver writing, announcing the title: _'How to Duel A Dark Lord'._ There was no author name on the front, so Remus cracked the book open.

Inside the book, there was only one single line of cursive text. The rest of the pages seemed to be padding, there simply to bookend the one thing that whoever had written this had wanted to get across. The words read:

'_Don't die.'_

Like it was that simple.

With a pained growl, Remus slammed the book back onto the shelf and whirled, stalking back to the cushioned chair. He made it halfway across the room before the fire in the hearth sparked to life. The werewolf jumped and spun to face the fireplace, immediately relaxing as he recognised the ashy face there.

"Professor. You startled me." Remus said after a moment, trying not to sound accusing and failing miserably.

From the glint in Dumbledore's eyes, he heard the edge to Remus' words, too. He just chose not to comment on it, ever benevolent.

"For that I apologise, my dear boy. I'm afraid that I had assumed you were eager to get this conversation underway. Perhaps I was wrong?" It was a question, not a statement, and for one long moment Remus hated what he knew Dumbledore was trying to do. But if he let his pride dictate his next words, he would be cutting his nose off to spite his face, as the saying went.

Remus had never placed much value in pride.

"I should be the one apologising, Professor." Remus said, shaking his head slowly and sinking to the ground, partly so he could be on eye level with Professor Dumbledore and partly because he suddenly felt like he needed to be sitting on something he wouldn't be able to fall off of. "I never meant to snap, but I'm -"

"Understandably tense," Dumbledore finished for him, an understanding smile painted across his face. "I apologise, again, Remus, for keeping you waiting for so long. I'm afraid that an old friend was having a bit of trouble." Dumbledore paused, an even though they were not their usual azure blue, and were only coal and flakes of dried out wood, Remus could read the apology in his eyes as though it was written out as clear as day. Suddenly they widened, as though the older man had just remembered something, "now, now, Remus, how many times must I ask you to call me Albus?"

"As always, at least once more, Professor," Remus said with a soft, barely discernable frown. He hardly thought that this was the time to be debating titles. "Have you heard any word of Harry?"

"Ah. I regret to inform you that I have not. However, it is early days yet. We will find him."

_But when? _Remus wanted to ask. _And will he be alive when we do?_

Instead he remained silent, and Dumbledore continued: "at the moment, there is, unfortunately, very little that we can do but wait. In the mean time, I would imagine that you are most impatient to know what events took place two weeks ago." He didn't wait for an answer, which was fortunate since Remus wouldn't have deemed it necessary to give one. It was obvious to any man with sense, Remus thought, that Dumbledore was, as always, right. "I believe we should continue this conversation in my office. The very walls of this castle have ears and, in some cases, I am quite convinced I have seen eyeballs watching me as I go about my midnight wanderings."

And with those ominous - and slightly bizarre - words, the fire dulled and the Headmaster's face faded from sight. For a heartbeat Remus just stared at the fireplace, before reaching up and pulling a fistful of floo powder out of the ceramic jar on the mantle. He tossed it into the burning fire, turning his head away to protect his retinas as the flames roared green. The fire settled then and Remus turned back, his pupils dilating in the relative darkness as he stepped into the fireplace. The flames were warm, not burning, and they tickled his calves through his robes as he called, "the Headmaster's Office!"

With another flare of floo powder, Remus found himself being pushed back away from the grate. He was spinning in tight circles, his arms pinned to his side by gee forces. Fireplaces flashed before his eyes even though they were closed to protect against ash. Remus squinted at the afterimages printed on the back of his eyelids - McGonagall's office, the Divination classroom, the Gryffindor common room … ah, there: Professor Dumbledore's office.

The fireplace spat him out, but since Remus had spotted the opening, he was ready for the sudden burst of forward motion. He stepped into it, and out into the Headmaster's Office.

Professor Dumbledore was waiting for him, his fingers steepled against his lips as he sat behind his formidable desk and watched Remus walk out of the fireplace. A tired smile graced the wizened man's lips, and Remus was suddenly struck by the realisation that Dumbledore was _old_. Far older than anyone ever considered. And today he looked every one of his years.

"Ah, Remus. Welcome," the Headmaster said, sounding for all the world like they weren't meeting to discuss something so tragic as the untimely disappearance of Harry James Potter. "May I interest you in a lemon drop?"

Remus imagined he would have taken offence to the Professor's seemingly carefree outlook, had he not noticed the conspicuous absence of the twinkle in Dumbledore's eye. Instead, the tawny-haired man shook his head and sat, without being prompted, in the plush armchair opposite Dumbledore. He drew in a deep breath, collecting himself under Dumbledore's azure gaze, and then got straight to the point, "what happened, Professor? He should have been safe. _You_ said …"

As the werewolf trailed off, Dumbledore rubbed the bridge of his nose beneath his half-moon glasses. "This old fool has said a great many things, my boy, not least in regards to James and Lily's son. I, myself, do not know how the wards were breached or, indeed, if they ever were. However, I have managed to piece together what I believe were the events of that night," here Dumbledore paused, "do you wish me to continue?"

To anyone else it would have seemed a stupid question, one uttered perhaps to stall the inevitable or to deny that which could not be. However, Remus knew that the churning dread in his gut was broadcasting itself on his face, and he could understand Professor Dumbledore's reticence. So he simply said, "yes."

And Professor Dumbledore continued. He told Remus of what he had managed to discover through conversations and distracted musings. He told Remus of how the Dursleys had sent the young Potter to walk the family dog after dark, of how neither Harry nor Killer had returned. He told Remus that the Muggle police were calling it an animal attack and of how they were interviewing zoo keepers, private collectors and Professors of Zoology. He confirmed what Remus had already known - the Muggle experts said 'large wolf', Remus himself had added the 'were' prefix. He told Remus of how careful examination had unearthed traces of Harry's blood among the meat that the Dursley's pet had been reduced to … and the faintest sliver of lingering magic.

"… you think someone has him." Remus said as Dumbledore finished his explanation, eyes hardening at the thought.

"It … is a possibility I am considering," Dumbledore agreed carefully, glancing down to where his index finger was tapping out some unconscious staccato rhythm. Remus followed his gaze. Dumbledore's hand was surprisingly smooth and unlined, marred only by an ugly purple line stretching from the base of his thumb to the pad of his ring finger. "This scar I earned over forty years ago. It was thought I would lose my hand, but at the time the full implications of such a thing did not occur to me. I had slain Lord Grindelwald and if the Gods asked of me only such a trivial thing then I was all too willing to relinquish what it was they requested. The exchange seemed more than fair - the lives of the Wizarding world for the use of a hand I only needed to button my robes. Sometimes conquest requires sacrifice, I said … and I was far more accurate then than I think even I knew."

Remus wasn't sure he liked the implications of what Professor Dumbledore was saying. Eyes narrowed, and the cogs inside his head visibly turning, Remus said, "but you _didn't_ lose your hand."

"No," Albus acknowledged, looking both resigned and hopeful at the same time. It was as if he was a falling man, suspended above a sharp horizon of unyielding stone by nothing more than a fraying thread … just counting down the seconds, watching and waiting with raw desperation as tiny ants of people scurried about below with nets and mattresses. Remus frowned, wondering what was behind the expression, as naked as it was. "No, I did not."

As words failed the both of them, neither man noticed the single black beetle resting on the stone window sill.

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 16th January 1988_

When Harry's eyes opened again, more time had passed than he knew. The Sun was higher in the sky than it had been when he'd fallen asleep, enchanted by Brigid's voice, and it stung his corneas. Wincing, Harry slammed his eyelids shut and then, after taking a moment to regroup and convince himself that it wouldn't hurt as much this time around, Harry cracked his eyes open just barely.

Wherever he was, he wasn't in Brigid's clearing anymore. That much was perfectly obvious, and Harry lifted his snout from where it was resting languidly on the ground. From his new, more alert perspective, Harry looked around his new surroundings again.

He didn't recognise anything, but he was fairly sure that he'd found the edge of the Forest. He was still outnumbered by trees, but just a head of him the tree line broke and gave way to a huge lawn and an only slightly smaller expanse of water. Framed by these, a Picasso surrounded by Monet, was a castle which easily dwarfed its landscape. It was beautiful - something out of a glorified history book. It looked magnificent in its complete dominance of the horizon, welcoming warmth epitomised. Its stones seemed to shine in the sunlight, its four towers stretching north like glistening beacons to the angels.

For the longest time all Harry could do was gape. And then he heard it.

Then he wondered how he could have possibly missed it before.

'It' was a buzzing, coming from the open air complex off to one side of the lawn. It was almost literally static in the air turned sound. It was growing louder and louder, like a giant bee being relentlessly prodded and poked. It made Harry's bones tremble with something indefinable - some anticipatory need and instinctive drive.

It exploded into a roar.

If Harry strained his ears just right, he could hear something beneath the breathless noise. Something with a structure … with words … with -

"_Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand_ welcome, ladies and gents, fish fingers and mackerels, to the first game of the season! Flying today: Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. I don't know about you, but there's one pressing question on my mind today: who the _Hell_ are the Slytherins going to cheer for!"

"_O'Sullivan_!"

The noise flared then, and Harry managed to recognise it as booming laughter. There was a crowd out there. Harry sprang into action so quickly that anyone watching would have seen nothing more than a black blur. When his muscles stilled again he was hidden in a bush with thorns shoved into places thorns really oughtn't go. But still he listened, ears pricked.

"Okay, okay! I promise!" The voice insisted, before adding in a low mutter, "jeez. Women." Unfortunately, his amplified voice was more than audible, and an even louder burst of laughter swept across Harry's hearing range, not quite masking the short scuffle that was broadcast by what Harry assumed to be a microphone. Curious, Harry poked his head out of the bush and cocked his head.

"Anyway, as I was _saying_," the voice continued after a few moments, sounding breathless, "all you Slytherins are just going to have to wait until it's _your _turn to be steamrolled by the Kings - and Queens - of the Jungle." More laughter, but boos now, too. Some sounded joking, others sounded murderous, but the voice just brushed them off with a dismissive laugh. "Just kidding, you crazy Huffles. Did I say 'steamrolled'? … I meant 'flattened'. Oh, wait … oi, _Professor_!"

This time it seemed that even the 'boo'ers were finding it difficult to take offence and only a few good-natured jeers could be heard amongst the cat calls.

The voice coughed, sounding indignant as it continued, "right. Moving on. As every living person on the planet with _sense _will be able to tell you, the Gryffindor Quidditch Team has never looked so good. There. Full stop. End of sentence. Hello folks, what's this? Looks like the teams are ready. To entertain their adoring - only _slightly_ blood-thirsty - fans. Oh, speaking of entertainment, don't think we don't all see you there, Burke … sneaking back from that peephole business you've got going in the girl's locker room. The shame. The horror. The unbelievably lucrative business idea -" The voice paused, and there was the unmistakable sound of something swiping through the air in its place. Harry's head snapped up and he shot around so that his nose was where his tail had been a second or so previous. But nothing was there, trying to sneak up on him, and the voice was talking again, "not to go all 'voulez vous coucher avec moi' on you all, but as the French say: le'z giz reazzy to _rumble_!"

There was barely a pause for appreciative laughter as the horrendous French accent suddenly gave way to bursts of rapid fire speech. "And here they are, for Hufflepuff: Smith, Patterson, Holland, Hutchinson, Sloan, Duggan and, cutting a rather fine form in those Quidditch robes if I do say so, their Captain, the luscious Roberta Grey. For Gryffindor: Ratchett, Castle, Troy, Doyle, Weasley, another Doyle - hey, Agalia, looking _good_ - and Gryffindor's very own Captain, star Beater, and all round nice guy … let's hear it, people, for Michael Penn! … Was that _it_?" The voice wondered aloud in the aftermath of a massive cheer, "where's the crying women, the tidal waves of drool … c'mon, tell a guy why it isn't raining knickers already."

"O'Sullivan! There are _childr _-"

"I know, Professor. We tried to get rid of those last week. It's tragic, but they just won't leave," the voice burst out distractedly before suddenly it almost tangibly froze, a sensation distinct in the atmosphere of the place. Harry didn't have to see the owner of the voice to know that he was visibly gulping. "Um … heheh?" The voice articulated hesitantly.

A sigh cut it off. "Oh, just get on with the job, Mr. O'Sullivan."

"Er … thanks, ma'am. Anyway, the Captains are lining up to shake hands and promise to play a good, clean game. Blah blah blah. If Penn's got any sense, he's taking the opportunity to ogle Grey's -"

"_Kesler_!"

"… freckles?" The crowd snickered, but the voice seemed to pay them no heed. "The Captains shake on it and Madame Hooch gives the order … and they're _off_!"

The noise flared into a bone-shaking roar and for the longest moment time and colour bled together until all Harry knew was the commentary. It didn't take long for words like 'snitch' and 'quaffle' and 'broomstick' to gain his interest. He had certainly never heard of a game called Quidditch that involved broomsticks and balls which sounded like a choked sneeze. For a second Harry entertained the thought that he was somehow in a foreign country. But there was something in the way the air tasted that said otherwise … and the commentator spoke English.

The tiny wolf cub was reticent to leave the relative safety of the forest's cover. But, with the noted exception of the giant spiders, nothing had tried to hurt him in this new world. It wasn't like Privet Drive, where there was a slap around every corner and no way out.

Maybe he could … just for a minute …

Mind made up, Harry slowly crept out of his hiding place and out into the open space that succeeded the Forest.

He could see some of what was going on in the large stadium now, refined vision revealing the blood red and honey crimson blurs in the air above as people, suspended by nothing that Harry could make out. Harry's breath hitched and he waited for them to fall. As though on cue, a red-tipped crimson blur suddenly thrust downwards, succumbing to gravity in tight spirals. A hush fell over the stadium - not even the voice was talking. All was silent and then - VROOOMPH! Like an erupting volcano, the air suddenly exploded with ecstatic noise. Harry's emerald eyes flared and he skipped back a few paces, tossing his head in a mixture of denial and confusion.

Why … why would _anyone_ cheer someone falling to their death? Just like Uncle Vernon. Just like -

A scarlet blur rocketed upwards and corkscrewed into Harry's peripheral vision. The tiny wolf cub's head snapped around and he gaped. It was … but how? The blur twisted in the air, spiralling ever higher. Another blur, this one yellow, was following the first smudge in the sky now. Chasing … chasing …

By the time Harry realised his paws were moving he was already standing by the huge, canvassed wall surrounding the stadium. The noise was near deafening now, but he seemed unable to stop himself from stepping even closer. Harry ducked his nose under the heavy drape and peeked inside to find a skeleton of wood and something unseen that smelled of ozone. Scrunching up the thin skin over his snout, Harry darted inside.

The covered area was wide, like a tented moat. The black cub had to hop across planks of timber to make it from one side to the other and then, by the opposite sheet of tarp, Harry paused for a moment. The muscles in his shoulders tensed unconsciously before, limbs quivering, Harry shoved his head unceremoniously through to the other side.

And gaped.

There was a huge sea of colour directly across from him. Somehow he could make out the faces and the bodies that made up the cacophony of visual noise; could see the expressions of delight and - in some cases, surly mocking - on their faces. There were people above him, too - he could hear them. He could practically smell their excitement.

And in the open air between circular stand and circular stand were fourteen figures, seven decked out in red and seven clothed in yellow, and all of them flying.

Harry did a double take at his, scarcely able to believe his eyes. His lower jaw felt unhinged.

"… And a darn near perfect example of a Wronski Feint from Gryffindor Seeker Charlie Weasley! Nice work, Charlie," the booming voice added as an after thought, "too bad Grey's not just a pretty face … oh! Hot damn, that _had _to hurt! Ratchett's nearly taken off of his broom by a particularly nasty bludger from Holland and -- no! NO! _NO!_ -- Hufflepuff's equalised. Heh. Way to go, Patterson. Eighty all."

A sudden hush fell across the crowd then as the tan ball was thrown back into the mix and the hovering figures surged into motion. They were fast and skilled, leaving little time for mistakes, but all eyes were on something else: one lone individual, clad in scarlet and gold, who seemed to have spotted something.

Without warning, the figure suddenly took off, speeding up higher into the heavens and then twisting and dropping down. He was silhouetted against the sky as he spun and cart wheeled and then, with fierce determination, shot towards the ground. He was followed by a member of the opposing team. But the player who joined him was slower and clumsier, unable to complete the sharp turns and tight manoeuvres that the first figure did. Harry's breath caught in his throat as the scarlet player skimmed along the ground like a skipping stone and then suddenly thrust his hand out into thin air.

The player braked sharply and shoved his right hand skywards and there was something in his clenched fist … something glittering and golden and struggling and … amazing, Harry thought, simply amazing.

The stadium all but burst with the resulting cheer and Harry, unable to stop himself, added his own exaltation to the mix: a long, delighted howl that went unheard and unremarked upon in the din of hoarse cries.

The players came back down to earth, dismounting something wooden and slapping the boy on the back. Harry pranced in nervous excitement, backing up and dancing forwards along the wooden beams and then, shivering anxiously, Harry misplaced a paw and fell. He cracked his skull on the plank on the way down and his entire world turned black.

When the world swam back into focus, Harry could no longer hear the ever present buzz of excitement and, while the unmistakably human scent lingered above him, it was no where near as strong as it had been before. Everyone was gone.

Whimpering as he lifted his head and stars prickled his vision, Harry gingerly got to his feet. He was in the moat beneath the planks of wood that crossed from the outside to the inside, hidden from the world by the thick drapes that hung beneath the stands of the stadium. If he dug his nails into the muddy bank on either side of the moat, Harry soon discovered that it was relatively easy to scramble out of the ditch and out of the stadium onto the lawn beyond it.

Out in the open, Harry stared up at the castle he had noticed earlier. He could see people waiting by its steps, its doors invitingly open. But, however much the people there would maybe be able to help him, they cut imposing figures and Harry was unwilling to move towards them. However, curiosity is a powerful motivator and, again, Harry found himself halfway across the stretch of grass before he'd even realised he was moving. Tossing his head in self-admonishment, Harry stepped back a few paces only to freeze in horror as he heard voices behind him.

" … and then Star Seeker over there goes and forgets his broom. Honestly. It's an insult to the commitment of Quidditchers everywhere!" Harrys ears twitched. He knew that voice. It was from before: the commentator.

"That's _Mr_. Star Seeker to you," a second voice answered, laughing in response to the teasing. "And 'Quidditchers'? Honestly, Kesler, that is _not_ a word."

The first voice snorted dismissively, "when you're as indisputably gifted with the English language as I am, allowances must be made. Why, it's like telling Isaac Newton that he can't mess around with physics!"

"Isaac who?"

"Ack!" The commentator exclaimed, sounding mortally wounded, "C'mon guys, back me up here!"

"Hey, leave me out of it," a female voice said, "the sooner you two stop quibbling, the sooner we can all get up to the party." There was a sudden noise as though one of the boys had attempted to blurt something, but the girl cut them off, "and just imagine how annoyed all of the girls are going to be if they have to wait for Penn and Weasley-the-bigger-version. You probably won't get out alive."

"My sister dearest as a point … loathe though I am to admit it." A fourth voice piped up, "Admittedly, your arguing is hardly having an affect on your forward motion, and that was an unbelievably lame excuse not to get pulled into this from Doyle-the-lesser over there, but … yeah. Shut up and find your calm before you ruin mine."

"… you don't even pretend to speak English any more, do you, Yer?" The commentator asked rhetorically.

"Hey, it's not Yerodin's fault he swallowed a thesaurus," yet another voice teased, earning a wave of laughter from his audience as they came ever closer.

Harry had spun to watch their approach and was now crouched low in the short grass, the tip of his nose barely covered. They were only ten metres away from him now and would be noticing every minute … but something kept Harry in place. Some recognition … that was the boy who had caught the golden ball … and he stayed. He stayed and …

It was Charlie who spotted the cowering wolf cub first. He shoved his broomstick into his older brother's surprised hands and cautiously closed the distance between himself and the black animal.

Harry's emerald eyes widened and he tried to scramble backwards, but Charlie, apparently sensing Harry's intentions, dug into his pocket and produced a strip of bacon. It was cold, but the scent of it still reached Harry's nose. His stomach rumbled and he paused in his getaway. Charlie grinned, and offered the meat. After a moment's hesitation, Harry crept forward and snatched it. He swallowed it down whole with some difficulty and then nuzzled Charlie's pocket for more.

Laughing, the seeker reached out to stroke Harry's head, gently scratching behind his ears as the rest of the victorious Gryffindor Quidditch team stood back and watched uncertainly.

Harry let an ambitious Charlie scoop him up, and eagerly downed the next strip of bacon when it was offered. Stomach sated even after such a small meal, Harry tentatively licked Charlie's cheek as the Gryffindor turned to present the wolf cub to the team and to his brother.

"What do you say, Bill?" Charlie asked, "can I keep 'im?"

_**1** If anyone's ever heard it, think Christophe Beck's 'Close Your Eyes'. The start of it, at least. Before it starts getting all climax-y. For everyone who doesn't have a clue what I'm talking about, it's the Buffy/Angel love theme from Season Two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And it's absolutely gorgeous. swoons slightly._


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

"_The wolf changes his coat, but not his disposition." - Proverb. _

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 16th January 1988_

Despite the fact that it was only the first match of the season, the victorious Gryffindor House partied hard. By the time the butterbeer had run dry and the bottles of fire whiskey being surreptiously passed around the older students had been emptied and discarded, the Wizarding wireless had been turned up fifteen times and there had been no less than eighteen false alarms, each unerringly triggered by slightly wobbly first years shrieking 'McGonagall!'

From the relative safety of underneath one of the more spectacularly gaudy red and gold armchairs, Harry alternated between watching the festivities and pressing himself a bit more firmly against the legs he had his back to. Above him, the redheaded star Seeker who had 'adopted' him was absently chatting to a pretty blonde girl as he carefully stroked the wolf cub moulding itself to his calves.

"It's rather strange," he was saying, curling a finger to scratch gently at Harry's skin. "He's really friendly - no way this little guy's wild. See how comfortable he is around me? _Definitely_ used to humans, and he was so close to the Quidditch pitch … but there's something off about it all." His voice fell to a terse hush as he concluded just loud enough to be heard over the thumping music, "I don't think he was treat right at all wherever he came from. He's really skittish, like he thinks _I'm_ going to bite _him_ or something …"

"What _are_ you going to do with him?" The girl asked after a moments pause, "you can't exactly keep him here - McGonagall'll go insane."

When the boy who Harry knew to be called Charlie spoke again, it sounded like he was laughing. "Well, you know what they say: what McGonagall doesn't know … can't hurt _us_!"

The girl's voice didn't sound nearly as amused, "right, and I suppose that he's going to be staying right here, is he? As some sort of … of unoriginal House mascot? He's a _wolf_, for crying out loud, Charlie, not a rabbit! Heck, he's so far removed from the generic fluffy animal category that he _eats _aforementioned fluffy animals for…for breakfast!"

"So do Labradors," Charlie shot back in exasperation, adding, "And poodles. Jeez, Gail, little _Chihuahuas_'d snack down on Bambi and Thumper if they wouldn't get a hoof to the head."

"Don't call me that," the girl protested, but it sounded like a lot of the fight had gone out of her. "And stop hanging around with my brother so much. There's only one demented Muggle pop culture reject of a talking dictionary that this House can stand. Besides, I was only making a point, there was no need to bring cute little deer into this; you can't hide him from McGonagall forever, y'know. Certainly not in the Common Room - just one unannounced visit slash inspection, Charlie, that'd be all it would take. You know that."

"Maybe I do," the redhead conceded with a stubborn set to his jaw, "And maybe I don't. He's a shy little thing, like I said - he isn't going to go running out to greet her just like that. I'd be willing to bet he's smart, too, it wouldn't be that hard to -"

"Train him? Charlie, you can't be serious…what are you going to do? Give him an electric shock every time you wave a sketch of McGonagall in front of his nose?"

"Now you're the one being stupid," Charlie said tightly, shooting the girl a glare.

" 'Now'? Oh, so you finally admit that every single word out of your mouth so far has been 'stupid', do you? Well. Nice to see you've finally come to your senses! This. Won't. Work!"

The girl's voice echoed sharply around the suddenly silent common room. Harry's wide-eyed green gaze tore away from the arguing Gryffindors and quickly lashed around the room. In the minutes since the rising heat and tension of the conversation above him had drawn his attention, the rest of the partying students had thinned out. Most of the first years had cleared out, along with the vast majority of the second and third years. The upperclassmen had dropped substantially as well, but with everyone staring bewildered at Charlie and the blonde girl, there seemed to be far more people present than there actually were.

The music cut off leaving the boom of a heavy bass hanging in the air.

"…er, Agalia?" A blonde boy with more than a passing resemblance to the arguing girl blinked, breaking the silence. "Far be it for me to act in a fraternal capacity, however I feel I must inquire as to the -"

"Shut up, Yerodin. Charlie's being an arse," The girl - Agalia - cut the studious boy off at the pass so to speak, her challenging gaze never leaving Charlie's.

"_I'm _being a -?"

"Did I stutter? You heard me."

"Oh, good Lord," Yerodin's frustrated groan seemed to resonate louder than Charlie and Agalia's squabbling and Harry blinked at him, cocking his black head as he almost unwillingly slunk out from underneath the chair. Keeping his belly low to the ground, Harry crept forward. He only stopped when he could swipe at Yerodin's shoelaces without exerting himself. "If I'd known that she was going to be this moody, I never would've bothered coming back this year," the blonde boy was muttering, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. Frustrated that he was being ignored, Harry rocked back on his haunches and pounced, landing against Yerodin's left kneecap and digging in his nails - claws - as he went tumbling back down the boy's pant leg. "Holy cra--!"

"Yer?"

"Whoa, dude…chill."

"You okay there?"

The concerned questions came from all sides, none of them giving indication of having seen Harry as he landed lightly on all four feet - an impressive feat given his canine physiology - and darted away and back under the chair in sudden apprehension.

"I-I'm fine," Yerodin stuttered, "though admittedly mildly worried that it is wholly possible that I may be beginning to find myself as deluded as a fairy sprinkling pixie dust."

As it turned out, only one person had seen Harry's aborted mission. When the second redhead spoke - his hair a few shades darker than Charlie's, and his voice a little more ragged around the edges - Harry felt a sick chill settle in the pit of his stomach.

He'd been seen.

"Relax, Yer, you're not going crazy. Well, crazier than you already are, anyway - Charlie's little pet project got you. Didn't'cha, fella?" The tall redhead asked, and a freckled face was suddenly thrust into Harry's line of vision; the lanky teenager was on his knees, peering underneath the chair. When he spotted Harry, the corners of his mouth turned up and he 'aha'd in triumph. "Hey - Kesler! Give me a hand and move the chair," he said, and the face was pulled back.

There was a sudden yelp and a thud as the background noise of bickering was sharply cut off and Charlie landed on the floor next to the chair.

"Merlin, Bill! Just ask next time."

"Sorry, Charlie. But by the way…you might want to move."

Muttering about Muggle memos and belated warnings, Charlie scrambled to his feet and took in the situation. He blinked, glancing from the trembling wolf cub under the chair to the chair itself and then to his brother.

"Merlin's beard, but you're a moron; you can't be thinking of doing what I think that you're thinking of doing."

Bill snorted impatiently, gesturing for the boy who'd responded to the name of 'Kesler' by darting over to stand by the chair to go ahead and lift. "Of _course_ I'm thinking of doing what you think I'm thinking of doing, Charlie. Maybe he can stay with us and maybe he can't, we'll see, but one thing he most certainly can't do is stay under there - he'll only scare the house elves."

"See?" Agalia crowed triumphantly, smacking Charlie on the shoulder and smirking, "your brother agrees with me."

Something hot flared behind Charlie's eyes and he whirled around to snap a reply back at Agalia. Kesler's amused, "you're a pretty skirt with legs, Agalia, 'course Billy-boy agrees with _you_," went unnoticed by all but Yerodin, who promptly whacked the Quidditch commentator upside the head with his open palm. And Charlie and Agalia were arguing again.

Rolling his eyes, Bill shot a look at Kesler, "I hope you're not waiting for that chair to lift itself."

"And what if I am?" Kesler asked, quirking a brow even as he took a few steps back and, with a smug look on his face, pulled his wand from his sleeve and drawled the incantation to the levitation charm. The chair floated lazily into the air and stayed there.

Harry's eyes were wide as they followed the chair's progression into the air. Rivalling saucers, he reluctantly lowered them from the ceiling, baring his teeth at the conglomerate of red and gold swathed students surrounding him. He felt exposed, vulnerable.

Bill reached for him tentatively, seemingly oblivious to Charlie's yelped "no!" as his younger brother suddenly tuned back in to the activity surrounding the wolf cub. Growling, Harry snapped his teeth at Bill's hand.

"Merlin's drawers!" The tall boy exclaimed, throwing himself back a few feet, "I felt breeze on that!"

That Harry's body was trembling so hard he felt like his muscles were seizing was the only reason Bill still had all of his fingers.

"McGonagall! McGonagall!" A previously overlooked first year shrieked loudly, largely ignored like the boy who'd cried wolf.

A false alarm it might have been, but it still broke the sudden tension in Harry's body. It uncoiled with a snap and suddenly Harry was running. He landed on Bill's upturned knee - forwards momentum the only thing he'd been able to muster in that split second of instinctive fight or flight - and sprang away before Bill could react to the sudden weight. Harry landed, tail spinning like crazy air resistance, on all four feet some five metres away from the felled redhead, and he was still in motion. He darted underneath an overstuffed sofa and pressed his back up against the wall that it backed onto. The thrumming in his chest turned into a growl turned into a bark and soon the young wolf was snarling and yapping warningly at the humans.

Unfortunately, the humans were in motion, too.

Some were yelling (Michael Penn's annoyed "Charlie, you idiot! You brought a wild wolf into our common room! _Wild_!" and Charlie's distracted "for the last time - I am _not_ an idiot!" echoing above all others), some were running to their dorms in uneasy panic, and yet others were shifting hesitantly towards him. Unhappy, Harry increased the pitch and frequency of his yips.

And the first year was still yelping, "McGonagall! McGonagall!"

Closest to the offending eleven year old, Penn snapped his head around and growled out, "would you shut up already?" in a tense snarl that put Harry's little rumblings to shame. The annoyance bled from his face seconds later as he stared, horrified at the bright red orb that the first year was frantically pointing at. "Aw, crap. Yerodin?"

Agalia's twin answered almost immediately, "much as I would ordinarily find myself delighted to be your choice of conversationalist, Michael, I must confess to wondering if this is precisely the right time for such a discussion."

"Huh uh. That's great, Yer, really. But…what does 'red' on your detection orb mean again?"

"Red? The particular shade of bleeding crimson that makes a scarlet moon pale in comparison to its undeniable strawberry hue? Why that simply means that our most dear, esteemed Head of House is…oh. Oh, bugger."

"Couldn't have put it better myself, Yer," Penn said tightly, cursing under his breath as he watched the black wolf pup respond to Charlie Weasley's attempts to wheedle it out from underneath the sofa by springing away, out from underneath the couch - well, at least they'd managed that - and across the entirety of the room. Barking all the way, the small black blur raced around the room, pouncing and leaping and backtracking across its original route several times before finally skidding to a halt in front of the fireplace.

Suddenly it cocked its head, staring at the entryway into the common room and shrinking down on itself. Obviously, it had sensed McGonagall's approach.

"Well…blow me," Penn muttered, before lifting his fingers to his mouth and wolf-whistling sharply to get his fellow Gryffindors' attention. The common room froze, all eyes snapping towards him as he indicated the glowing red orb. All of the eyes in the room seemed to widen in sync.

It was Bill Weasley who broke the still with a frantically hissed, "darn it - someone get 'im!"

And then the common room was back in motion, everyone throwing themselves desperately at the poor wolf cub.

Harry, for his part, was absolutely terrified. A large body made the ground shake as its owner flung himself forwards to block his path and he yowled, skittering backwards. He sprang to the side seconds later, feeling the pads of his paws graze against the soft carpeting as he threw himself off the ground and away from reaching, groping hands. Momentarily safe, Harry snapped his head around, his green eyes taking in his new viewpoint from where he was balanced precariously on the arm of one of the chairs - his claws digging in with tearing, ripping sounds - with quick, anxious little darting movements.

The red and gold clad teenagers were starting to converge on him again. He could hear their hushed tactical whispers as clearly as if they'd murmured the words into his ear, but the words seemed to wash over him meaninglessly as he focused on his next move.

If he could just get…right there…then he would be…

"Ah, crap - _stupefy_!"

_Azkaban Prison, 18th January 1988_

"…pretty little wallflower, all wrapped up ten to the posy. I heard the thunder God and he liked me. Made me squeal and burp rainbows and butterflies and storm clouds from my belly. Legs a' trembling, knees a' spread. Good little girl gives it up to the Lord, but he creases my soul. He creases it! He _creases_ it! Rip, tear, rip, rip, tear. Origami paper thin little white rice has lost his sheep and apple pie crumbles at dawn but it's poison. Like snake fang and buttermilk and lost little worlds. Lost lost lostlostlostlostlostlostlost…"

The voice was little more than a croak as it trailed off into giggles that didn't quite form, but it still tore at his sanity. Maybe the crazies were infectious. Or maybe he just couldn't stand to hear the reminder. And she. Never. Shut. _UP_; just cackled about mushroom mountains and candy floss lakes in that absent, disconnected wheeze. Didn't even stop when the water didn't come, just gargled around a dry throat and didn't even seem to feel the way her lips cracked and bled.

He tried to shut her out, tune her into nothing more than distracting static, but it wouldn't click in his head and he never knew when her ramblings were just ramblings or if they'd evolved into metaphors and prophecies. The aurors said she had been a seer once - had it in the blood. Then Voldemort had got her and…even Padfoot's ears hadn't been able to pick up their words once they'd past through a thick enough oak door.

But whatever Voldemort had done to her--

"…full throttle roar goes the lamb turned sheep turned raging teeth turned rabbit turned cub turned hot little kettle. Roar. Meep meep. Can you hear the mother? No, me neither. No one can. She keeps her peace - silently dead while the old man weeps and that is the way that the world stops to sleep. Tired insomniac says her piece. Jigsaw slot mockingly rocking the space rocket of…of…oh."

-- hadn't been…his eyes widened from behind the caked on dirt and dried sweat. She had stopped. She only stopped when…

The door at the far end of the stone hall was flung open and he froze, shaking his head a little like it would stop them from coming. They came anyway, storming down the centre pathway between prison cells like tangible, angry Gods and…and…_James!_

"_I-it's the Potters! Oh, Merlin save us all but it's over! Young Harry, yes, James and Lily's young son, he…he did it! He's _vanquished_ he-who-must-not-be-named! He's gone! Gone forever! We're free!"_

_Lost in the crowd of witches and wizards that suddenly swarmed the other man, desperate for information, he stood back, wrapped in the shadows at the back of the pub. His brain was numb, unwilling to process the information. Harry had…? His little pup had…but how? Unless James had finally gone insane and just thrown the pup's bassinet at Voldemort's feet, then how could he have…Peter. Oh, Merlin…Peter!_

"_And what of Lily and James?" _

_The voice was tentative, but it caught his attention like a bear trap. As did the man's answer._

"_I…their house was…it was levelled. There was nothing left of --"_

_He didn't stay to here the rest, already halfway out of the door. He had to…he had to…_Peter

"Well, well. Sirius Black."

He looked up and out of the memory, forcing a cheery grin onto his lips as he staggered to his feet - had he fallen? When had…oh, no, sitting. He remembered sitting - and, bracing himself weakly against the bars, nodded in acknowledgement. "Millicent Bagnold, it's an absolute pleasure. You're looking simply wondrous this evening, Minister; a ray of light in this dreadful pit of squalor, if I do say so. Any chance of a full pardon being on the cards today?"

Minister Bagnold's eyes narrowed and she sniffed, a thick mucous-filled sound. "I would not say so, Mr. Black," she answered, voice level and diplomatic, the woman as always aware of the company that she kept in the swarm of politicians and lawyers around her. It was a small mercy that the Dementors had gone on ahead. But then, Sirius highly doubted that the Minister would have enjoyed their company. He knew he didn't. "For services to the Dark Lord and your role in the deaths of James Harold Potter and Lily Marie Evans, it was decided that you would serve four consecutive life terms imprisoned in this very prison, was it not?"

If the Minister had been expecting a reply then she was sorely mistaken.

She continued anyway, drawing herself up to her full height, "as of this very moment, you have only served six and a half years of your sentence," Sirius stared. Six and a half years…? "And being that it is law that no reprieve or consideration of probation shall be given to those sentenced to life terms, I do believe that no, there shall not be a pardon on the cards today."

Bagnold's entourage of blood-sucking lawyers twittered and Sirius kept staring. His gaze ticked almost unbidden to the rag of paper clenched in her hand and he glanced back up to her face, smiling his most charming smile in the face of her undisguised disgust.

"Your newspaper, then, if not a pardon? I _really _miss doing the crossword. Not the sudoku puzzle, though, you can keep that part if you like. Surprising really, though, isn't it? I don't much miss clean air, but I'd give my left foot for a good crossword. What do you say?"

For a moment he thought she was going to refuse just out of spite. He could practically see the machinations whirring in his head as her gaze blinked at him to the corner of her peripheral vision, where the small contingent stood, watching the interaction with obvious interest. What would be the best thing for her to do, he wondered. Where was the political edge?

"Sneezing buttercups achoo achoo. Rockabye lullaby bless you when the wind blows and the scouring pot falls from the sky, spilling soup, spilling broth, spilling haggis in clumps of red, red meat and the sky is blue, blue, blue. Can you hear the cawcaw cawcaw of bird song? The whispered wind of shouted willow in the stream a' gargling a' growling and hush. Hush. Hush. You can not scream because the wind knows. Wind blows. Your chimney's crooked. It knows that, too."

Her fevered ramblings seemed to make Bagnold's mind up for her. The Minister had shoved the newspaper through the bars and marched her way down the entirety of the corridor before Sirius had even really realised that she'd moved, too busy staring at the ragged women, her hair tangled, her hands working furiously on her upper arms, trying to heat the muscle.

Once he was sure that her lackeys had followed after her, he reached trembling fingers out to the newspaper and plucked it from the bars. It felt grainy and smooth against his skin, the cleanest thing that he had touched in as long as he could remember. The ink stains it left on his index finger were nothing against the dirt and grime that had already encased the digit.

Pushing her voice to the back of his head with as much will power as he could, Sirius Black flipped the newspaper open and turned the thick sheaf of parchment to the front cover. He stared, eyelids not so much wrenching wide as locking in place, lacking the energy for any big expressive movements. His jaw slackened, and the tiniest breath escaped his open lips.

The headline was jumping out at him:

**HARRY POTTER: THE BOY-WHO-DISAPPEARED?**

**or the boy-who-_was_-wolf?**

_Malfoy Manor, 18th January 1988_

Harry Potter: The Boy-Who-Disappeared? _How…nauseatingly cute. _Lucius Malfoy's upper lip curled into a sneer as his slate grey eyes tracked downwards, across the image of the waiflike orphan, and down to the text beneath the picture.

The headline was reiterated twice in the first sentence, the author obviously quite proud of their literary imagination. Who, he wondered, had…ah, Rita Skeeter. That explained everything, he thought, scrunching up one side of his nose in almost dainty disgust as he smoothed the newspaper out across his agarwood desk. The quality of writing and of material was appalling, not worthy of being in the same room as himself, never mind in his grasp. But…still…such a juicy, potentially saturated nugget of information on the Brat-Who-Wouldn't-Die (far more fitting a moniker) could not be ignored.

And if the Potter boy _was_ a werewolf…oh, yes, but this needed to be acted on immediately.

"Huntsmen Halls," Lucius commanded the small house elf stood by his fireplace. The creature hurried to comply, throwing twice a fistful of floo powder into the flames and squeaking the address. By the time Lucius had knelt on the black satin pillow in front of his fire, the flames had flared into brilliance and hawk eyes were blinking sharply back at him through the embers.

"Lucius Malfoy, Sir. To what do I owe this?" The man's voice was as razor-like as his features, and that was a feat; the planes of his face looked like you could cut yourself open with just a graze and his eyebrows angled acutely towards the heavens. The man was bald but, though it didn't come across over floo well, Lucius knew that the stubble there was like shark skin.

"Have you seen the news today, Raeger?" Lucius asked, choosing to skip by the pleasantries completely. This was not a courtroom - diplomatic niceties would do him no favours in this ring.

"As a matter of fact, I have, Sir. Was most educational," Flinted eyes hardened suddenly, though seconds ago it wouldn't have seemed possible, and a cold smirk twisted the man's features. "Would I be correct in imagining that you would be contacting me in order to…seek the services of me and mine on this matter?"

Lucius raised a single brow, "If you are assuming that I wish to employ the Huntsmen to track, locate and slay the now known werewolf, Harry James Potter then, yes, Raeger, you would be correct to assume."

Raeger nodded slowly, considering. When he grinned seconds later it was almost grotesque. "Payment?"

"The usual charge plus fifteen percent for the…celebrity of it all. Fifteen more if you provide the agreed upon evidence."

"The agreed upon…?" Raeger was fishing, Lucius knew, keen eyes seeing right through the other man's ploy.

His gaze sharpened. "Innocence does not suit you well, Raeger."

The man called Raeger smiled again then, showing off a row of neat, jagged teeth. "Aye, you're probably right there, lad," Lucius suppressed his annoyance, "the contract is sealed; you'll have your Harry Potter's head on a pike by the end of the week."

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 19th January 1988_

"What are you _doing_? It's meant to be _cyan_, not pink!" Agalia's hissed voice was almost lost in the strained silence of the classroom and the sudden fury of bubbles rising from the cauldron in front of her.

Bill Weasley, her assigned partner, shot an exasperated look at Yerodin, the only other Gryffindor to have made it into Professor Snape's NEWT Potions class. Seeing that he was getting no sympathy from that corner - Yerodin was studiously chopping up his liverwort at an exact 32 degree angle - he instead rolled his eyes expressively at his backpack.

For a long second, the backpack didn't respond either - not much of a surprise there - but then it twitched and a black snout poked out from the open zipper. The snout seemed to grin for a moment before disappearing back into the red and gold book bag.

"Stop turning Stormy against me," Agalia pouted, flicking a piece of 35 degree liverwort at Bill's head.

Snorting indignantly, Bill caught the liverwort neatly out of the air, "someone should," he said dryly, ignoring the unhappy slant to Agalia's face.

_And I can't believe we're calling the poor thing 'Stormy' now, either,_ he added silently, shooting the backpack an apologetic look.

Not that he or any of the other boys would be able to do anything about it, anyway, he amended wryly; they'd been quickly outvoted the very second a suddenly protective Agalia (who was still feeling guilty for her stunner and the ton of lies they'd all had to tell McGonagall, apparently, if Stormy's permanent home in the girl's dorms was any indication) had noticed the crimson lightning bolt on the wolf cub's head. It might have been a salvageable situation…until all of the other girl's immediately agreed that it was simply adorable. Merlin's knickers, the little wolf was just lucky that Charlie had managed to distract the girls from their campaign to call him Harry.

Honestly, one neatly shaped lightning bolt scar and a newspaper article about Harry Potter and the whole world goes barmy. Bill snorted and flipped another page in his Potion text, eyes searching frantically for some clue as to how to turn a pink potion cyan.

He was blissfully unaware of the black ball of fur sneaking its way out of his open book bag.

This may have been because Harry was trying to be as sneaky as possible. Harry, or Stormy as he was now known among the Gryffindors, was starting to get used to the concept of having four legs and four very sensitive paws to take care of. His tail tucked securely between his legs, he crept forwards, daintily picking up his black-socked paws in turn and settling them back down on the stone floor a few inches along.

This was too weird, he thought, shoulders shivering involuntarily at the feel of the cold through the skin of his feet. First there was the wolf thing, easily bizarre enough on its own, but then there was the giant spiders, the half-horse men, the flying game of Quidditch and now…and now _this_!

'This' was, of course, magic. Over the last couple of days, Harry had seen a lot of magic, from teapots into hamsters to sleeping draughts and how to ward off an inferi. It was…it was spectacular, but he needed to leave - Uncle Vernon would never approve of him spending time in such a place. Not the same Uncle Vernon who had once clipped his own precious son around the ear because he'd wanted a magician to perform at his fifth birthday party.

It was the only time in Dudley's history on the planet that he hadn't gotten things exactly his own way and it spoke volumes; ones which only really said one thing to Harry: if he didn't get out of here soon he was going to be washing windows until he was too old and feeble to stand safely on the ladder. And then probably a little while longer after then.

Not that Uncle Vernon was an unreasonable man at all, Harry corrected himself dutifully as he crept along on his stomach, making steady time across the room. He broke out of his quick, darting backseat thoughts to slip safely around a yellow and black covered ankle and to duck under and around a blue and bronze back pack in motion as a girl scooped it up from the floor, her eyes still locked on the book in front of her. Dancing easily out of danger and detection, his thoughts returned to Uncle Vernon. No, he wasn't a bad man, not really. He was realistic, not evil. He knew about the world, that was all, just like Aunt Petunia said, and he was doing him a favour, really. How was he meant to grow up decent if he had his heads in clouds of flying motorcycles all the time? He'd never get a wife or have a good job as a Grunning's accountant - Harry's desperate dream, overshadowed only by a desire to have Aunt Petunia bake him cookies just for him. None for Dudley because these were _his_ cookies - if he didn't work hard and keep his head down.

Head down and don't be seen. It was a motto standing Harry in good stead as he made his way out from underneath one of the desks, still virtually silent in the quiet, focused classroom. All of the students were too busy being terrified - he could smell their nerves mixed in with the nausea-inducing mesh of pungent, stinging scents already permeating the air - and diligent and the teacher was too busy bei--

--Harry crashed headfirst into a stationary ankle.

Mortified with himself, but bravely fighting back the stirrings of anxious fear rising in his gut, Harry peeked upwards from where he'd gone sprawling back onto his tailbone. Surprised, black eyes stared back down at him, a hard, unfriendly glint to them.

"Well, well, well," Professor Snape said, finding his voice after only a second's hesitation. He tore his eyes from Harry's, though still keeping the wolf cub in his peripheral vision as he lifted his head to scan his classroom. All of the faces staring back at him looked equally as guilty…but only a few didn't also look totally blank, "what _do_ we have here?"

Harry was unable to reply with anything other than a small, frustrated whimper - lacking in both vocal chords and the teenaged exposure necessary for the mind to automatically jump to a swear word in such a position - but when the time came for him to look back on this moment, he would agree that Bill Weasley summed the situation up very nicely.

"…_Shit_."

_**TBC…**_

_Well, there it is. It's shorter than I'd have liked when I started this chapter, and events are moving along a bit faster than I'd first imagined they would, but the characters seem fine with it and well, it's not ruining the story so who am I to argue with my stars?_

_A lot's happened in this chapter - Sirius, Lucius and Raeger, Harry getting busted…hopefully that'll make it worth the wait. Also, don't worry - the OCs are gonna get toned down next chapter if it kills me._

_Anyway, thanks to all who reviewed. And until next time_


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